


caught in the middle

by monstermash



Series: memento mori (remember, you will die) [3]
Category: Far Cry (Video Games), Far Cry 5
Genre: Alternate Universe, Does this count as a fix-it fic?, Fix-It of Sorts, M/M, Time Loop, body horror?, character death but it's temporary
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-04-15
Updated: 2018-11-14
Packaged: 2019-04-23 01:48:11
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 23
Words: 71,690
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/14321850
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/monstermash/pseuds/monstermash
Summary: Garrett wakes up in the bunker and there’s Dutch, alive and well.He’s never been happier to wake up cuffed.He’s also never woken up so hopeless before either; he knows he’s caught in the middle of something he doesn’t really understand.(Garrett also doesn’t quite understand why John Seed has been so fixated on him, even before the time loops, before he killed him the first time around.)





	1. i heard heaven and thunder cry

**Author's Note:**

> so i'm trying out writing john seed/deputy with a time loop au 
> 
> this intro chapter is really short, but that's mostly becuz i'm about to go binge play far cry 5 lmao
> 
> i'll probably come back and do some big edits to this first chapter but we'll see

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> heyyy there's a [playlist](https://8tracks.com/edmunderson/caught-in-the-middle) for this fic now.

The world is burning and falling apart before his very eyes.

Everything goes dark for a while, but when he wakes up he’s in Dutch’s bunker and there’s only Joseph Seed. The man essentially tells him he doesn’t plan on killing him.

As soon as Joseph leaves the room, Garrett takes one look at the cuffs keeping him imprisoned to the bedframe.

He’s not going to live here, with this man who killed Dutch, the Fairgraves, and everyone else who resisted Eden’s Gate.

So Garrett Rook does the only thing he can think of.

He bashes his head against the metal of the bedframe. It’s noisy but he keeps at it, he only has so much time before Joseph can make it back into the room and stop him. 

He keeps bashing his head against the metal until everything fades to black.

\---

Everything faded to black and then suddenly Garrett Rook is standing in that dimly lit church, Joseph Seed before him with his wrists held out.

_What._

“Cuff him, Rook,” Marshal Burke tells him, and Garrett looks at him and then briefly at the other Seed siblings. Burke, Jacob, Faith, John – hell, even Sheriff Whitehorse technically – they’re all supposed to be dead.

_What the fuck?_

Everyone’s eyes are on him and Burke prompts him again to arrest Joseph Seed, there’s a strange sense of vertigo, of déjà vu, that comes over him. He’s done this before, or it feels like he has.

Before Burke can tell him a third time, Garrett cuffs the man in front of him and they head towards the church doors.

When he looks back at the Seed siblings, Jacob and Faith are discussing something, but John—

John Seed is looking right at him, their gazes locking for a brief moment, and there’s something in the other man’s eyes.

He can’t quite place what it is, so he turns his head back around as he follows Whitehorse, Burke, and Hudson back to the helicopter.

\---

Garrett’s running through the woods, away from the burning remains of the helicopter, away from the Peggies with bullets barely missing him.

He doesn’t realize that he’s already making his way to the trailer where he met up with the Marshal the first time until Burke calls him over the radio. By then the place is already in view and Garrett is crashing through the door.

After that a lot of things happen the same way they did the first time; Burke gets the truck running, the Peggies pursue them.

At one point Burke hands him some sticks of dynamite.

Garrett must’ve been really fucking lucky before, because when he’s about to throw the last stick of dynamite the truck swerves, rammed by a jeep, and Garrett fumbles.

The lit dynamite lands in the bed of _their_ truck instead of its intended target.

He can see it rolling around back there, and he can’t let it go off or just sit and hope that the wind will snuff the fuse out. Garrett slides himself further out the window in spite of Burke’s protests and shouts of “What the hell do you think you’re doing?” Another vehicle rams into them, nearly making Garrett fly out of the window he’s sitting in and the dynamite slides further away.

“Rook!”

Too late.

The dynamite goes off and for a brief moment there’s nothing but searing heat and blinding light around him.

And then they’re back in the church, Joseph Seed in front of him, and John Seed staring right at him.

“Cuff him, Rook.”

This is the moment when Garrett Rook realizes he’s in a time loop, which is crazy. This isn’t a science-fiction novel, this is real life, and time loops _don’t fucking happen_ in real life.

Or maybe he’s in Hell.

Either way, he’s stuck and he doesn’t know _why_ or how to even fix it.

\---

Garrett must’ve been _really_ fucking lucky the first time around because he’s looped through at least five times and he and Burke haven’t even made it to the bridge they’re supposed to get knocked off of.

He’s died seven times in total and that’s a messed up thing he’d never thought he’d ever think.

When round eight comes around (after Burke accidentally _ran him over_ with the truck, what the hell, Burke), after Burke says “Cuff him, Rook” yet again, Garrett repeats the motions of it.

Cuff Seed, get in the helicopter, survive crash, escape with Burke.

Rinse and repeat.

But this time, when Sheriff and Burke open the doors, Garrett feels a hand wrap around his bicep.

It startles him because he thought it might’ve been one of the cultists, but when he looks it’s John and that’s even _weirder_ because up until now the man had been following a script like everyone else where he just stares intently at Garrett from a distance.

Cornflower blues burn into him, keep him rooted where he stands, and Garrett is suddenly reminded of some comments Sharky and Adelaide had made the first time around. The world shrinks down to just them as they just stare at one another.

“Mr. Seed, step away,” the Sheriff says, but John ignores him, continues to hold Garrett there and stare at him, his jaw clenching and unclenching like he wants to say something.

“It’s alright, brother,” Joseph tells him and John lets go, pulls his hand away from Garrett like he had been burned just by touching him.

They get in the helicopter, it crashes, and he and Burke make it to the truck.

This time they finally make it to the bridge and fall off of it and into the river.

Garrett wakes up in the bunker and there’s Dutch, alive and well.

He’s never been happier to wake up cuffed.

He’s also never woken up so hopeless before either; he knows he’s caught in the middle of something he doesn’t really understand.

(Garrett also doesn’t quite understand why John Seed has been so fixated on him, even before the time loops, before he killed him the first time around.)


	2. that's a played out trap, man

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> oh man, y'all would not believe how much this chapter was fighting me and i'm still not even sure i'm 100% happy with it lmao
> 
> thank you guys so much for the comments! it means a lot that you guys have so much faith in that i'll do this au well. (i'm constantly worried i'm gonna mess it up tbqh)
> 
> oh and can i just say that adelaide and sharky are my favorite guns for hire so far? other than boomer of course.

Dutch decides not to hand him over to the Seed family.

It hadn’t occurred to Garrett until now that it was entirely possible that that could happen if these resets keep happening. If it does, well, Garrett knows how to get out of cuffs, but he’d rather avoid that if he can. Broken thumbs aren’t fun and would be more of a hassle than anything.

He clears Dutch’s land of cultists again and Aaron – the guy he rescued on the docks – tags along until Garrett gets the radio tower up and running.

Garrett keeps an eye out from the top of the radio tower as Dutch walks him through the important locations on the map; he already knows where he’s going, but lets the older man talk to his heart’s content.

That and no point in making Dutch suspicious and think Garrett is just as crazy as the Peggies with talk of time loops.

So once the radio clicks off, Garrett packs up the map and makes his way down the ladders, and starts up the ATV and heads towards Rae Rae’s pumpkin farm over in Holland Valley.

Maybe this time he can get there in time to save Rae Rae and her family.

\---

The bad luck doesn’t seem to be letting up.

He managed to take out the road block and its guards with only one stick of dynamite and continue on down the road, but then he ran into one truck full of Peggies after another as well as a guy with flamethrower of all things.

So much for the stealthy approach.

Needless to say he decides to stay off the road. Which means that he runs into a wild dog and a snake fighting in the middle of a dirt trail and well… that sets him back too.

The sun has dipped lower in the sky by the time he makes it to the pumpkin farm and Boomer is already loaded up into the cage attached to the cultist’s truck.

Garrett turns the safety off on his pistol and stays low.

\---

Garrett searches the house for any possible survivors, Boomer trailing behind him.

The place has been tossed but there are none. He was too late.

Before the sour twist in his stomach can settle Dutch is calling him over the radio again.

“Oh shit… Deputy,” Dutch’s voice crackles over the radio. “I’m pickin’ up something new outta Holland Valley. It’s a broadcast from John... I hope you’re near a television, because you need to see this.”

Garrett’s brow furrows in confusion. During the first time, John’s broadcast didn’t happen for at least another day, so why is he doing it early? Why is John going off script when everyone else seems to be adhering to it for the most part?

He turns on the TV in the chaotic living room and wipes away the blood from the screen as he changes it to channel 7.

For most of it, it’s exactly the same; the same ‘self-actualizing’ attitude used by most cons, the confident smile, the whole ‘Yes’ routine that Garrett can’t help but roll his eyes at. And just like the first time he saw this, he can’t tear his eyes away from the cornflower blues, as if he’s compelled to look into them like they’re an abyss and waiting to see if the abyss will stare back.

And then the camera cuts to Hudson, bound and gagged, being led in front of the crowd to stand next to John. She still looks uncomfortable and scared and it tugs at Garrett’s heart because she’s been a good friend to him since he started working for the Sheriff’s Department. Pratt too, and the thought of Pratt being stuck with Jacob up in the Whitetails only serves to make the sinking feeling in Garrett’s gut worse.

Now comes the part where John addresses him without naming him, when Garrett manages to shake himself from his spiraling thoughts.

“If you’re watching this, know that you have been selected. You will be cleansed. You will confess your sins, and you will be offered atonement. Don’t worry. You won’t have to do anything. We’ll come for you,” John says into the camera, a pleasant smile on his face that doesn’t quite reach his eyes. 

Then there’s a flash of something in John’s eyes and his smile curls ever so slightly.

“We’ll be coming for you _real_ soon.”

The screen goes dark and then to static.

Garrett scowls and turns the TV off. He’s not going to be intimidated by any of the Seeds, especially not by John. He grabs a few spare sheets from the house’s linen closet, wraps Rae Rae and her family in them, and sets about digging graves for them.

The dead cultists he leaves out for the wildlife to claim.

\---

Garrett’s making his way back into John’s territory, Sharky and Boomer in tow, after liberating the marina and getting Tulip back to Adelaide.

The sun has long since set as he drives towards Nick Rye’s place.

If Garrett is being completely honest, he still has no idea what the hell he’s doing or why they’re in a time loop that seems to reset every time he dies. It’s frustrating because there’s no one he can ask for any kind of hint about how he’s supposed to fix this, absolutely no indication on how to end it, preferably without bombs and being trapped in a bunker with Joseph Seed as the world burns.

He’s goddamn clueless and he can’t get John Seed’s face out of his head ever since that broadcast.

As soon as he hears distant gunfire he’s pulled from his thoughts and makes a sharp turn onto Nick’s property and the seaplane is taking off.

“Ready?” Garrett asks Sharky as he stops the car.

The man grins wildly at him.

“Born ready.”

\---

Nick asks him to get his plane back.

Garrett tells him he will and has Sharky and Boomer hang back and wait with the Rye family.

“Can’t believe you’re making me miss out on all the action,” Sharky grumbles while Garrett checks his guns and stocks up on ammo.

“Trust me, the Peggies aren’t going to be too pleased that I’m stealing the plane back. They’ll be coming back here in droves, so you’re not going to be missing much.”

Sharky seems to perk up at that.

Garrett pats Boomer and then he’s out the door.

\---

He makes it to John’s ranch without incident and keeps to the shadows, planning the best way to get to the plane, but his eyes keep sliding over to the house.

Garrett’s never been inside the place. Even after he killed John the first time around he never came back here. Curiosity is itching in the back of his mind.

He should ignore it, focus on the plane…

He _really_ should ignore it.

Garrett curses under his breath as he carefully makes his way over to the house.

All the lights are off and the back door is unlocked. Garrett’s immediately suspicious, but his curiosity intensifies.

He slips inside, undetected by the patrolling cultists, and lets his eyes adjust to the dark of the house before he moves any further inside. The place is spacious and richly decorated, but there’s… there’s something _off_ about the house, though Garrett can’t quite put his finger on it.

He goes from room to room, all of them too pristine, like something out of a magazine. The place looks unlived in.

The impromptu tour of the empty house comes to a stop when he finds the office, which he decides to poke around in. Garrett doesn’t find much save for a cellphone and presses the home button and the screen lights up and there’s no lock screen on it.

 _Doesn’t this guy lock anything?_ Garrett thinks to himself as he thumbs through the phone and finds that there’s nothing on it except for four numbers; Joseph, Jacob, Faith, and John (Main). 

Huh, looks like he found John’s backup cell.

Garrett pockets the phone after a short debate and silently makes his way back out of the house now that his curiosity has been satiated. Once he’s back outside he takes another look at the area; there’s a lot of Peggies and he could probably take them down, but he’s spent too long wandering around John’s house and he’d rather not have his cover blown by someone radioing him.

Seems like his best option is to just make a run for the plane.

As he’s readying himself to make a mad dash for it, a sudden streak of mischief runs through him. He pulls out the phone and opens a new text message.
    
    
    catch me if you can

As soon as he sends it Garrett slides the cellphone back into his pocket and then he’s up and running, ignoring the alarmed shouts from the cultists.

\---

Garrett can hear the loud whoop Sharky lets out as he lands the plan back at Nick Rye’s place, having used the plane’s guns to take down the last of the cultists attacking the property.

“You crazy son of a gun! I didn’t know you knew how to fly.”

“I don’t,” Garrett replies with a wry smile and hauls himself out of the plane.

Nick thanks him profusely for getting the seaplane back and for helping getting rid of the attacking Peggies. Garrett waves him off and tells him it was no problem.

The sun is starting to peak out from behind the mountains, and Garrett thinks it might be the exhaustion talking, but as soon as he lays eyes on the YES sign on the side of the mountains he gets an urge to just tear it down.

“Hey Sharky, how pissed do you think John will be if we fuck with that?” Garrett asks, pointing to the distant sign.

Sharky grins wide and wild at him.

“I like the way you think, Deputy.”

That’s all the answer he needed. Garrett pulls out his radio and calls Adelaide for a pickup.

\---

“Honey, there are better ways to get a man’s attention,” Adelaide tells him, but she’s laughing as he and Sharky throw dynamite at the sign. “Though I guess your pulling his pigtails gets the job done just as well.”

“I’m not pulling on his pigtails. If anything I’m pulling on his beard. Wait, no, that sounded wrong.” Garrett scrunches his nose at the weird phrasing and at the older woman’s implication, but it gets Adelaide laughing again.

“Oh honey, that’s just too cute. Anyone with eyes can see that man’s got it bad for you.”

Garrett rolls his eyes and shoots Sharky an exasperated _‘can you believe her?’_ look.

“I think she’s got a point,” Sharky says as he throws another stick of dynamite. “I mean, you sent a picture of the sign and a text saying _‘meet me at this eyesore in the next 15 minutes for a fight.’_ And then there was that angry phone call from him where you hung up on him halfway through it. It’s like two kids in a schoolyard who pinch each other ‘cause they like one another.”

“Cat and mouse,” Adelaide sing-songs.

“Cat and mouse,” Sharky agrees.

“You two are terrible.”

\---

Adelaide drops them off in the old, overgrown field of Garrett’s family farmhouse.

“Huh, didn’t even know this place existed,” Sharky comments as they head up to the house, Boomer bounding ahead of them.

“It’s hard to find unless you know exactly where it is,” Garrett says as he grabs the spare key from on top of the door frame.

The place is exactly how he left a month ago – well, technically a year and some change because of the loops – and it feels good to be somewhere untouched by the toxic grasp of Eden’s Gate. Garrett shows Sharky to one of the spare rooms and then leaves him be to go pass out in his own bed.

If he dreams of furious blue eyes, well, no one has to know but him.

\---

Dutch’s voice wakes him up a few hours later.

Despite the trouble he has trying to get his eyes to focus Garrett manages to grab the radio from the bedside table.

“Dutch?”

“Holy shit, kid. You’ve pissed in John’s cornflakes. He’s sending Peggie trackers after you. You better get running.”

It takes a moment for the words to process but once they do Garrett’s up and out of his room. He’s rushing to get all of his weapons and shoving his boots back on while also writing out a quick note for Sharky which he leaves taped on the man’s cheek so he can’t possibly miss it.

Boomer whines when Garrett finally opens up the front door.

“Sorry boy, you can’t come with me this time,” Garrett apologizes and pats the dog goodbye and closes the farmhouse door behind him.

\---

Garrett doesn’t even bother trying to hide from the trackers; he knows from firsthand experience that they’ll find him no matter what. His plan is to just be as far from his house as possible so that the Peggies don’t discover it or Sharky and Boomer.

He gets about an hour away from his home before they find him; Garrett forgot how much he hates Bliss-laced bullets.

His thoughts are clouded from the Bliss surging through his veins and he can’t see straight. Garrett’s balance is fucked as stumbles and then the pavement of the road is coming up fast to meet him. There’s a dull sense of pain, but there’s not much he can do about it.

“This one?” An unfamiliar voice asks.

“Yes,” confirms a voice that _is_ familiar and Garrett’s head lolls to the side to see who it is.

John’s face leans in and Garrett can’t help but stare into those bright, cornflower blue eyes.

As the Bliss pulls him under he thinks he hears John say, “I’m not letting you get away this time.” But that’s probably just the Bliss making him hear things.

Right?

\---

When he wakes up, his mouth is dry and he’s been zip-tied to another bed post.

For a moment Garrett wonders if he’s got _‘Chain me to a bed’_ tattooed on his forehead or something, because it’s kind of worrying how often he wakes up like this.

He doesn’t even get a chance to try to come up with a plan to get out of this since John steps into his line of sight. There’s a look on his face that Garrett can’t quite place as the other man’s hand touches his jaw in what can only be called a possessive hold, making him hold eye contact with him, as if there was any possibility of Garrett looking anywhere else.

“Caught you.”


	3. whiskey dick, except it was only a kiss

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> not quite as long of a chapter as i would've liked, but i'm gonna be pretty busy this week and updates in general for this fic will probably take longer as i want to take my time with this to really get it right.
> 
> (i may or may not change the title of this chapter)

“You know, I don’t take kindly to being ignored, Deputy. Much less to being hung up on. Bad manners and all that,” John says, keeping his hold on Garrett.

“Well, maybe if you worked on your hospitality,” Garrett replies. He could easily kick out at the other man, considering that he’s crouched in front of him, in between Garrett’s sprawled out legs as Garrett sits on the hard wooden floor, torso twisted at an odd and uncomfortable angle due to being zip-tied to a bedpost. 

He could, but he won’t.

“Sinners who kill the faithful aren’t exactly worthy of hospitality. Not until they’ve been cleansed and accept salvation.”

“Is it really accepting if they’re Blissed out of their minds?” Garrett asks with a mirthless smile. John’s eyes harden and his hand moves from Garrett’s jaw to loosely wrap around his neck, applying the smallest amount of pressure. 

“It’s the will of God.”

A warning, one that Garrett should probably heed, but much like the exhaustion he experienced at Nick Rye’s airfield, Garrett finds himself following through on what is probably a bad idea. 

“Is it? Or is it the will of a madman?”

The other man lets out a huff that could easily be mistaken for a laugh, but is more of a sigh of exasperation. The grip on Garrett’s neck tightens slightly.

“Did you ever stop to think that maybe Joseph is right?” John asks with a deceptively soft tone, his eyes flicking over Garrett’s face, looking for something. “Everyone thinks he’s crazy, but he’s not. The world is on the brink; can’t you feel it? You go around with your weapons and destroy everything you touch, thinking you’re saving people, but you’re not.”

Garrett thinks back to the bombs dropping and wonders just how far the reach of Eden’s Gate is. He knows the world isn’t perfect, never expected it to be, and for a moment he feels a brief flash of pity for the disillusioned man before him.

“Don’t—don’t you _dare_ look at me like that,” John threatens and his grip grows tighter. “I don’t want your pity.”

Garrett wets his lips as he thinks about what to say.

“It doesn’t matter to me if Joseph is right or wrong. What does matter is the way all of you are going about this. The world’s not as great as it could be? I agree with that. Do I want people to be safe? Absolutely.” He pauses and takes as deep a breath as he can with that iron grip on his neck. “But I can’t sit by and watch as a cult terrorizes and ruins the lives of good people.”

John looks livid, and Garrett should shut up, he really, _really_ should, but his mouth keeps going without his permission.

“You want a better world? Then actually try to help fix the one we live in instead of running from it like a _coward,”_ Garrett bites out.

As soon as he’s finished speaking the hand around his neck tightens so much that he can no longer breathe whereas the other man is breathing harshly now.

“You don’t understand. You don’t believe. You don’t _care!”_

John releases his hold on Garrett’s throat when his vision starts to go spotty and blows Bliss dust into his face and Garrett chokes on it.

“You’re going to be cleansed and you will give in. You _will_ say ‘yes.’”

\---

Everything feels weightless and detached.

There’s a burning sensation in his lungs and everything sounds far away and distant.

Gnarled hands that belong to a cultist grab him by his shirt and haul Garrett out of the murky waters. He chokes on air, coughing as his lungs try to remember how they’re supposed to work. It’s dark out and Garrett feels like he’s about to float away – far, far away like Faith does sometimes in these Bliss induced hallucinations – but then John is in front of him and those blue eyes keep him tethered in place.

Suddenly every little thing becomes sparkling clear to Garrett, like an epiphany.

That beyond the anger and frustration there’s always been a hunger that flares to life in John when he lays his eyes on him, displays it in the way he takes hold of Garrett by the throat once more, presses bruises upon bruises – a warning to others not to touch. 

Garrett can finally see that. He doesn’t know how he missed it before.

Just as suddenly as he had this realization it’s ripped away from him when John forces him back under the water.

Bruises upon bruises, water in the lungs, warm hands. Then he’s being pulled upright again, John’s hand sinks into Garrett’s hair and tugs his head back making him look at the other man. Another piece to the puzzle that Garrett can’t seem to make fit, no matter how much Bliss he’s forcefully given; John seems fixated on making Garrett look at him. It’s more than him hating being ignored.

If Garrett had enough time to think more on it, he might be able to make sense of it, but then Joseph is there and the two brothers are talking and it makes him wince because it’s too _loud._

Joseph leaves and John crowds in close to him, leans in so that his lips brush against Garrett’s ear when he whispers, “You are mine.”

(He won’t remember any of this, save for John’s whispered words and even then he won’t be completely sure if they were ever really said at all.)

\---

Garrett wakes in the back of a transport van with a woman and a man who are also tied up and one cultist with a rifle guarding them. His mouth is dry and his neck is sore and there’s bound to be bruises blooming across his skin in shades of purples and yellows.

 _Off to confession and atonement then,_ Garrett thinks and leans his head back against the metal shell of the truck. He’s not looking forward to being carved into by John again.

The other two captives are talking, but Garrett’s still groggy and disoriented from the Bliss so he just lets the noise wash over him. His eyes snap open when the Peggie hits the woman with the butt of his rifle and suddenly there’s the roar of an engine, the screech of metal against metal, and they all go flying.

The truck rolls and rolls and they’re knocked about in the back of it.

Garrett stares in shock at where he’s about to land and suddenly time seems to have slowed. The angle he’s coming in at will snap his neck.

 _I’m going to die again,_ he thinks idly. _And I’m still not any closer to figuring this out._

Time returns to its normal pace and it’s over in seconds.

He’s standing in the church again.

“Cuff him, Rook.”

\---

The hardest part about these time loops is making it to the bridge.

Garrett doesn’t make it to the bridge as easily this time; he actually loses count at some point, after #98 he thinks.

#98 was different, the exhaustion of going through this over and over _and over_ was taking its toll on him. Deciding to do as Joseph suggests, Garrett ignores Burke’s order to arrest the man.

Instead, he simply turns around and leaves without a word.

Ignoring the heated argument between Burke and Whitehorse, Garrett pushes open the church’s doors. He barely makes it a few steps outside before he’s greeted with the oh so familiar sound of a shovel meeting the back of someone’s skull.

Except it’s _his_ skull that just got whacked with a shovel.

He stumbles, eyes wide with shock as his hand touches the back of his head and comes away bloody.

There’s shouting coming from Hudson, a louder, angrier shout that comes from within the church, and Garrett has barely turned around to get a look at his attacker – a Peggie with glazed over eyes – when the shovel meets his face and then he’s back in the church, Burke and Whitehorse at his side as if he hadn’t just been beaten to death with a shovel.

In a way, he supposes he wasn’t, but the killer headache he has says otherwise.

Looks like the universe – or whatever it is that keeps making these loops in time happen – doesn’t want him leaving and ignoring all of this. It’s the only sign he’s gotten about this whole situation and it only serves to frustrate him more because he doesn’t _know_ what it wants from him.

“Cuff him, Rook.”

Garrett grows to hate those words.

But he does as he’s ordered and ignores John’s bright eyes that burn into him.

Sometimes he wonders if any of this – time repeating itself – is real or if this is just something his mind conjured up and he’s still in that bunker with his self-inflicted wounds, slowly dying, as the world burns.

\---

Garrett goes to steal the spare phone again before he steals back Nick Rye’s plane.

The backdoor is unlocked as always, but he stops in the living room; he’s not alone.

For once, John is actually in his own home and sitting in the dark with a mostly empty bottle of Jack.

Garrett edges closer, unsure if the man is asleep or what, but Garrett reaches out to take the bottle from his grasp, to keep it from slipping. As soon as he touches the man’s hand, John’s eyes snap open and he grabs Garrett’s wrist.

“Stealing from me, Deputy? That’s a sin, you know,” John says, his words slurring a bit, and yanks Garrett closer and Garrett throws his other hand out to keep from falling forward too much, but they still end up with their faces too close. He can smell the whiskey on his breath. “All you do is take, and take, and take.”

Garrett doesn’t really know what to do other than stare dumbly at the other man.

“I don’t like being ignored, _Deputy.”_

And then there’s warm lips crashing against his in a biting kiss, the kind of desperate kiss of someone who has waited years for the chance and didn’t want to lose it, and there’s lightning shooting up Garrett’s spine.

He likes it.

He likes it too much.

Adelaide and Sharky’s words come back to haunt him as he bites back, and he bites hard enough to split John’s lip.

_(“You are mine.”)_

They jerk away from each other at the coppery taste and John’s grip on Garrett’s wrist is so tight that he knows it’s going to leave finger shaped bruises. Garrett can’t help but watch, enraptured, as John licks his bloody lip. After a few moments the other man takes the bottle of whiskey back, releases his hold on Garrett, and shoves the spare phone into his hand.

“Take it. Take the phone, take the plane and go,” John orders numbly, a tiredness and age beyond his years hanging about him, and drinks more of the whiskey.

“What—”

“Are you deaf? Just take it and go, I’m tired of looking at you.”

Garrett takes one last look at John – sees frustration and anger thrumming underneath his skin, a twitch in his hand as if he’s holding himself back from reaching out, from following after him – and then he’s out the door and into the night.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> i hope i conveyed john's short temper well enough
> 
> next chapter will take even more of a turn into au territory, mostly due to certain events in game going differently due to the fact that the deputy has knowledge that other characters do not.


	4. concussions 101

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> we're getting there, slowly but surely guys
> 
> i wrote like, 90% of this chapter in one night. i would've kept going but where i ended it just felt like a good place to leave it.
> 
> i'll fix any mistakes later, right now i'm just gonna go crash and then get back to writing lmao.
> 
> thank you guys as always for reading and leaving comments, it really means a lot.
> 
> (little fun fact: garrett's birthday is April 1, 1988 so he's 30 when the events of fc5 take place.)

There’s a map of Hope County spread out before him, X’s littering across it sporadically, notes he’s written all over it, certain locations have been circled.

Garrett’s trying to come up with a plan, though he doesn’t know how well he can actually _plan_ anything when the whole point hasn’t even been revealed to him.

Maybe he should go for Jacob’s territory? Strike first and fast. If he goes after Jacob Seed though, he’ll have to worry about hunters being sent after him as soon as he makes too much of a ruckus.

 _‘Only You’_ plays softly in his mind and Garrett shivers at the memory of it; one good thing about the time loops is that he doesn’t start off already brainwashed to that awful fucking song.

When he thinks about it, getting Pratt out of that hellhole as soon as possible seems the best course of action, but he’ll have to deal with an entire army first.

The thing about armies though, is that they march on their stomachs.

Sure, up in the Whitetails there’s plenty of game and food to scavenge, but that takes up time and resources. If Garrett retakes Holland Valley, where all the farms are located then there goes the cult’s main source of food. Same goes for the Henbane River; cut off the main supply of Bliss and then the Peggies wouldn’t be as easy to control, more erratic as they go through withdrawal.

But there’s a drawback to going that route though; Staci is left with Jacob even longer and Garrett remembers how fucked up he was during his first time through. It also doesn’t help that Hudson is stuck with John, though there won’t be too much harm that’ll come to her; John only seems interested in hurting her when Garrett’s around and scaring the shit out of her when he isn’t.

Although… Garrett doesn’t know how well that will last. For all he knows in this loop John will decide to make her go through confession even if Garrett isn’t there. And he can’t leave Falls End and Mary May to fend for themselves for too long.

He drags a hand through his hair, mussing it up out of frustration; he can’t decide.

Pulling out the phone he got from John, Garrett opens up a new text message to the man he’s been trying to put out of his thoughts for the past few days since that night he got Nick’s plane back.
    
    
    how pissed would you be if I blew up some silos?

Setting the phone down on his kitchen table next to the map and notes, Garrett sprawls back in his chair, head hanging over the back of it, and stares at the ceiling fan spinning lazily overhead; he can hear Boomer barking and chasing after hares out in the old field.

The phone buzzing against the wooden tabletop makes Garrett jolt upright; he hadn’t been expecting a reply this soon, or at all honestly.
    
    
    Don’t.

Garrett starts typing a reply, an amused smile finding its way on his face.
    
    
    what about destroying the YES sign

Setting out bait to see how riled up he can make the herald of Holland Valley.
    
    
    Absolutely not. I will make you rebuild it and then bury you beneath it.

A bark of laughter escapes him.
    
    
    man, for a guy who’s all about the “power of yes” you sure do say no a lot. don’t believe in what youre selling?

When the phone buzzes again it isn’t a text; it’s a phone call.

Curious to see how John will react, Garrett actually answers it.

“What are you trying to do?” John practically hisses down the line.

Garrett hums thoughtfully, drumming his fingers on the tabletop. He wonders if he lost his mind somewhere along the way during one of the loops.

“Trying to figure out what to do with my day. I’m open to suggestions.”

Garrett suppresses a laugh when he hears a disbelieving _“Unbelievable.”_

“Here’s a thought: _don’t_ blow up anything. Just don’t do anything at all.”

“Hmm… No, that’s not going to work.”

An exasperated sigh and then, “Why must you be so difficult?”

He shrugs but then remembers that they’re talking on the phone so John can’t actually see him.

“Can’t help you there, John. That’s like asking if water is wet.”

John doesn’t have to say anything when he hangs up; Garrett can practically feel the fury building up from here. He probably shouldn’t antagonize John, the guy is clearly unstable. Hell, the entire family is clearly unstable, but John’s the one with explosive anger and the guy doesn’t even try to rein it in unless Joseph is present.

He remembers the eulogy Joseph gave, how John was feared and hated more than he was loved, and Garrett can’t imagine how lonely that could be, that kind of self-inflicted isolation. Pushing everyone away yet keeping them pressed under your thumb; he doesn’t know if that was John’s intention from the beginning or what, but that’s what Garrett sees.

Garrett can’t imagine doing any of that, being so angry and trying to control everything around him to the point where he can’t control anything at all. It must be very tiring.

But then again, William had made sure to instill the lesson of needing other people and reaching out to them for as long as Garrett had known the man.

_(“No one can last as an island, Garrett, and no one should try to. People don’t work like that.”)_

Garrett takes one last look at the map before deciding on Falls End.

\---

The gun plane scares him every time, mostly because the machine gun on the roof of the garage turns so damn slowly that Garrett has to time it perfectly or get riddled with bullets.

He got lucky this time and only got grazed on his outer thigh. It’s an easy enough fix.

Garrett helps pry off the wooden boards from storefronts and homes before heading over to the Spread Eagle. As soon as he pushes open the door he can hear Jerome reciting a biblical passage.

The pastor finishes his recitation as soon as he sees him and smiles stretch across both of their faces.

“I don’t claim to know God’s plans, but I know a good thing when I see it. You’re getting quite the reputation, Garrett. You’re the first good thing to happen to this Valley in a long time.”

“A little help?” and then there’s Mary May struggling to get down the stairs with her tower of booze.

Jerome sighs and shakes his head as he goes over to take one of the crates from her. “Are you trying to break your neck?”

“Seemed like a good idea at the time,” Mary May grunts. “Thanks.”

Garrett grabs the next crate from her and grins when she looks like she’s staring at a ghost.

“Oh shit. It’s you,” she breathes out and almost drops her crate like she was about to hug the life out of him. “Sorry. Didn’t realize… We heard about someone escaping from the main compound the night you and the others went to arrest Joseph Seed, but then I didn’t hear from you so I thought…”

Mary May shakes her head, as if trying to erase any bad thoughts like an etch-a-sketch, on her way over to the bar. “Doesn’t matter what I thought. You’re here now.”

“I thought that Eden’s Gate confiscated all this.”

“The hell kinda Fairgrave would I be if I didn’t have a hidden stash?” Mary May picks up an old framed photograph of her and William, from long before any of this shit began. “Learned from the best…”

“We owe you thanks, but—”

“I know you’re lookin’ for Hudson and Pratt and the Sheriff,” Mary May cuts off Jerome and passes out shot glasses and lets Jerome fill them with alcohol, “But the truth is, we need your help too. Pastor and I can only do so much…”

“If you can see about lending a hand, we’ll be sure to return the favor. What do you say?”

Garrett raises an eyebrow, making Jerome chuckle and Mary May smile. Their shot glasses clink together as they toast and when Garrett knocks back his drink he almost chokes at the taste of the whiskey, at the memory of teeth and a kiss in a dark house and lightning up his spine.

The whiskey burns his throat, but there’s a different kind of burn on his lips and tongue.

\---

Garrett sits up on the roof of the garage that night with Boomer curled up at his feet.

He’s watching the stars when he hears someone coming up the ladder, but he’s not worried because he already knows who it is.

“I swear, I will never understand your fascination with the stars. Or Elton John, but I think I’d take that over the cold right now,” Mary May grouses as she takes a seat next to him and pulls out a flask.

Garrett smiles wryly when he accepts the flask from her. It’s whiskey again and he shoves away the memory associated with it. He takes a pull from it before handing it back.

“I would, but I think the Peggies destroyed the piano and I don’t think Jerome would be willing to let me anywhere near the one in the church.”

“Not after that stupid prank you and Billy did when you two were fifteen.”

They sit in silence, just watching the stars and passing the flask back and forth, until Mary May finally speaks up.

“You know, when you told me you were going to be part of the team arresting that lunatic I was scared. I was scared that you were gonna go there and never come back. That you’d be gone, just like pop and mom and Billy,” her voice cracks on her brother’s name and Garrett looks at her and sees the tears she’s holding back. “And then I didn’t hear from you for _weeks—_ I thought you were dead or worse and I couldn’t… I couldn’t bear the thought of any part of my family being stuck with the Peggies.”

There’s a sad half smile on Garrett’s face, because in a way, he never did make it back from the compound. So many loops, so many repeats in time, where he _never_ came back.

He doesn’t tell her this though. No point in upsetting her further.

Instead, he wraps an arm around her shoulder.

“It’s okay to cry, kid.”

And cry she does. 

Garrett doesn’t remember the last time he saw her cry. Probably when she was 7 years old, and Freddy Olsen stuck gum in her hair and she had to get it cut real short because it just wouldn’t come out and spread further the more they tried.

Point is, he’s surprised but also not; it was bound to happen at some point. Everyone reaches that point where stress and fear become too much, a breaking point. At least Mary May is doing the healthy thing and crying it out. Garrett doesn’t know what he’ll do when he reaches that point, if he hasn’t already.

\---

In the morning he heads out to the abandoned Lamb of God Church with Nick, Hurk, and Sharky; Boomer stays in Falls End with Mary May and Jerome.

Garrett knows he’ll find Grace Armstrong there; she always is, always guarding the dead from Peggies who are looking to defile the graveyard.

Of course they all pitch in and help her defend the place, but in the heat of battle a Peggie gets a good hit it to the back of Garrett’s head and he’s down for the count.

Everything goes dark, but he doesn’t wake up in the church to Burke saying “Cuff him, Rook.”

\---

Garrett wakes up already standing in a hospital. He can tell by the distinct smell of disinfectant.

It’s odd… Something about this place is off, but he can’t quite put his finger on what.

People walk past him without acknowledging that he’s even there, like he isn’t there at all. There’s a fog in his head, as if he’s half asleep and can’t wake up, and he just starts walking down the hallway.

It’s like he fell through a crack in time; it’s the only way he can describe this feeling of being wherever he is but also not being there.

There’s… There’s _something_ he’s looking for, that he needs to find, but he doesn’t know what and why. It’s urgent that he finds it before it’s too late.

_Hurry._

Garrett starts running.

_Hurry!_

He peers in through windows and open doors, but it’s wrong, it’s all wrong, he can’t find it.

_find it find it find it_

Then he hears it; a soft, barely there sound coming from further down the hospital’s hall. Garrett knows that what he’s looking for, what he needs to find, is so close.

_right the wrongs_

That isn’t his voice, but he feels like he should know it even though it doesn’t feel familiar at all. Whose is it? Either way, it doesn’t matter, it isn’t important.

What is important is that he gets to that room before he slips through another crack in time or whatever this is.

He never gets there though.

A lurch in his stomach, his feet turning sluggish and he falls forward again, the tiled floor rushing up to meet him.

\---

Garrett wakes up on his back in the graveyard, Grace and Sharky and Hurk and Nick looking down at him. His head hurts and it’s too bright out.

“You okay there, Amigo?”

“Yeah, you took a nasty hit to your head.”

His mouth opens to answer them but what comes out instead is stomach acid.

“That’s gross, buddy.”

“I feel gross,” Garrett murmurs, closing his eyes to see if that can make everything stop spinning and being too bright. “Might have a concussion.”

“Would be surprised if you didn’t,” Grace says and she starts hauling him upright. “You took a bat to the back of the head. Wasn’t enough to kill you, obviously, but you might need some stitches. You’re lucky the Peggies were too busy going after your friends here to bother with anyone in between the tombstones.”

“Huh, looks like Billy Fairgrave’s tombstone saved your life,” Hurk says cheerfully unaware.

“God damn it, Hurk,” Nick mutters.

Garrett chokes on a sob and the hysterical laughter bubbling up inside of him, a six year old hurt suddenly lancing through him and he honestly couldn't even say why it struck him now of all times.

(He’s not at his breaking point, _he’s not.)_

He blames it on the concussion.

\---

Garrett goes in and out of consciousness while Nick drives them back to Falls End, catching bits and pieces of conversation.

“Never really knew Garrett or Billy too well growing up. They were a grade ahead of me and Billy was the more talkative one of the two. Where one went the other usually followed,” Garrett hears Nick say, probably to Grace. “Billy died about six years back. You were probably still overseas when that happened.”

Garrett tunes out after a while, lets himself drift off again from where he’s crammed in the backseat between Sharky and Hurk.

He’s not out for long when the car lurches sideways, shouts of shock and the familiar screech of metal on metal as the car rolls into the ditch that runs parallel to this stretch of road.

Silence, blissful silence, until the car door by Hurk creaks open and then there’s a pair of hands dragging Garrett away.

“Just this one? What about the others?”

“John’s orders were very specific; he only wants the Deputy. Leave the rest.”

\---

When Garrett wakes up again, he finds himself in John’s house once more. His wrists are zip-tied together, but at least he isn’t trapped to a bedpost this time so that’s an improvement.

Brushing the back of his head as carefully as he can with the way his hands are, he finds that someone has stitched up the split skin and that it’s still tender.

Since he’s not trapped to the bed, Garrett pushes himself up.

Up on unsteady feet, Garrett makes his way to the door and slips quietly out into the hall; he doesn’t plan on making a daring escape attempt, but he’d rather not stay cooped up in what he assumes is John’s room.

He wanders aimlessly, keeping as close to the walls as possible even though he’s sure that these wooden floorboards are too new to even creak underneath him, but old habits die hard.

Garrett walks past John’s office – where he can hear the man on the phone and while he isn’t yelling there’s a distinct tone of anger boiling just beneath the surface – and down the stairs to the main floor, turns to the right, and heads towards the large library. He figures he can wait here until John’s done tearing whoever is on the other end of the call a new one. It’s not like he can just waltz out of the Seed ranch with a concussion and no weapons.

Looking through the pristine, new books – the spines aren’t broken or cracked, probably never been opened – Garrett finds himself wondering why John even has all of this; the large house that looks straight out of a magazine, unnaturally clean and looking like no one lives in it, the clearly expensive clothes although that at least makes some sense. The man is a lawyer and personal presentation means a lot, or at least he assumes it does.

Control the way you look to others and you can control their opinion of you.

Or something like that.

Eventually a book of poetry catches his eye and he awkwardly pulls it from the shelf; a collection of Robert Frost.

His eyes skim through it, one poem in particular drawing his attention, but he doesn’t retain much of it except for the last stanza, the concussion making it hard for him to focus on the words.

A door opens and closes, then another opens and closes, much louder than the first, and Garrett listens halfheartedly as he tries to make his eyes focus on the poem, but it makes him nauseous. More doors on the floor above open and it makes his head pound repeatedly and it isn’t until it stops that he realizes it was the sound of footsteps on the staircase.

When Garrett looks up from the book there stands John in the doorway looking both pissed off and relieved, which is an odd combination to see on him. Garrett raises his eyebrows in question, waiting for the other man to speak. They both stand there in a silent standoff, stubbornly trying to wait the other out.

John caves first and looks incredibly frustrated by it.

“How’s your head?”

Not what Garrett was expecting, but he rolls with it and shrugs.

“Sore. Still have a concussion.”

John exhales loudly and steps closer. “I told them to be careful, but clearly my trust in them to do a simple job was misplaced.”

“Don’t be too hard on them. This,” Garrett gestures to the back of his head, “happened before they T-boned Nick’s car.”

He hoped that that would placate the man, but if anything it seems to only make him livid as he crowds in closer.

“Who?”

“Does it really matter?” Garrett doesn’t see why it should; the Peggie who did it is either long gone or dead by now.

John seems to disagree, however, since he grabs Garrett by the back of his neck, forcing him to hold eye contact.

“It matters,” John tells him lowly. “It matters, because you are mine and no one is allowed to touch you unless I say so.”

Now Garrett is getting pissed at this stupid possessive behavior routine. He manages to put the book on the shelf without breaking eye contact and jabs a finger into John’s chest.

“I don’t belong to you. I’m not an object – a _thing_ – to be owned. You can’t own a person!”

For as angry as John can get Garrett can match him; he won’t be cowed or bullied into giving John whatever he wants. He can see different emotions flash in John’s eyes, too fast for Garrett to decipher but he can see them fighting to see which one comes out on top.

Taking a deep breath, Garrett tries to calm himself down; he’s still angry, but he’s not going to let it control him.

“Who are you really, John Seed?” Garrett asks him, brow furrowed and mouth a hard line. “Someone who thinks his only value comes from instilling fear in others? What are you trying to prove, and to who?”

“Stop.”

He could, probably should since he knows how unpredictable John can be, but he doesn’t.

“What are you trying to prove?” Garrett repeats quietly.

John presses their foreheads together almost painfully, both of his hands cupping Garrett’s jaw.

“I told you to _stop.”_ He almost sounds defeated, an easy to miss crack in his voice, and it stuns Garrett because he was expecting more anger, sudden and possibly violent, not… this. 

Garrett looks down at the small space that barely separates their bodies and is surprised to find his hands fisted in John’s shirt. Slowly, he unclenches his fists and smooths out the now wrinkled fabric and John nudges Garrett’s nose with his own and suddenly everything feels too intimate.

But he doesn’t pull away.

Doesn’t pull his hands away from where they rest against John’s abdomen, doesn’t pull his face away.

John presses closer and closer until there’s no space left between them and then they’re kissing. Not the rough, biting kiss from that night with the whiskey and the dark; this kiss is soft, lips barely pressed together, ghosting against one another.

Garrett doesn’t fight it, returns it even.

He never expected John being capable of displaying any kind of soft emotion, always expects him to be volatile one way or another.

And of course the moment he thinks that, John pulls back and Garrett sees something he’s too afraid to name in those blue eyes.

But just as soon as he sees it it’s gone, and so is the delicate air about them. John pulls further away, his jaw clenching, and turns back towards the open door.

“You’ll be baptized and put through confession within the hour,” John tells him as he strides away, not once looking back at him.

Garrett is left standing in the library, reeling from the emotional whiplash John leaves in his wake.


	5. fix me in forty-five

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> this chapter was kind of a struggle, but that was mostly with the action sequences in later half, which i ended up keeping to a minimum. this is also kind of short compared to the last chapter, but the next one should be longer so it evens out i guess
> 
> EDIT: i thought the song john whistles in the bunker was Only You but apparently it's actually We'll meet Again so i fixed that part

“Stay with me.” Jerome cuts away the ties keeping Garrett’s wrists bound while Garrett chokes on a dry heave; having a concussion and surviving another car crash is not a good combination and he feels even worse. “Didn’t go to all this trouble just to lose you now.”

The cold metal of a pistol being pushed into his hands gets his attention for long enough.

Now that he thinks about it, he’s also high off of Bliss from the river water, so the fact that he’s able to stand upright at all without any assistance is a damn miracle.

“How’d you know where I was?” Garrett asks, barely managing to keep his words from slurring.

“Your friends. Lucky the Peggies decided to leave them after they ambushed you, otherwise you’d be in the middle of a Confession right now.” Jerome claps his shoulder and nods towards the guardhouse up ahead. “We’ve got others to rescue too. I hope you’re up for it.”

Garrett finds himself nodding without even thinking about it.

\---

He’d forgotten about the mortars which just goes to show how long it has been since he’s made it this far.

The mortar had been hell on his ears the first time around; right now though, he’s not even completely sure how he made it across the pocked and cratered earth to other side to free Merle.

Sheer dumb luck, probably.

Using the mortar while concussed was an adventure all on its own. Merle ends up taking over when he notices the shake in Garrett’s hands when he tries to load another round, so Garrett runs around with a shovel to beat up the Peggies who get too close.

Exhaustion makes his body shake and tremble after a time, but Garrett and Merle don’t have to wait very long for the helicopter to show up and fly them away.

Once they’re up and away Garrett passes out.

\---

“You did _what?”_

“It wasn’t that bad, Mary May—”

“Not that bad my ass, Garrett Rook! You went charging through mortar fire with a damn concussion.”

“To be fair,” Jerome interjects, “I did ask him to do it.”

Mary May glares at him. “That ain’t helping at all. And who in the world are you texting? You’re concussed, you shouldn’t be using that.”

Garrett lifts his phone out of her reach, still typing away.

“Here you go, buddy. Good job on gettin’ free.” Sharky tries to hand him a drink, only for Mary May to snatch it away.

“What part of _‘he’s got a concussion’_ do all of you not understand? No alcohol for him. He can have water. That’s it.” Her tone brooks no argument and no one tries to give Garrett any alcohol but that’s okay; he’d only throw it back up and his head ends up fuzzy anyway.

\---

When the morning light filters in through the windows Garrett finds himself sprawled across the secondhand couch in Mary May’s apartment above the Spread Eagle. He doesn’t remember too much from last night after Jerome rescued him, just has vague impressions.

Looking down, Garrett takes stock of himself; the collar of his shirt is ripped and there’s dried blood spatter down the front of it and partially on his jeans, the skin of his knuckles is split and raw and there’s an annoying throbbing pulse behind his eyes.

With a groan Garrett turns away from the morning light and presses his face against the back of the couch, but can’t drop back into sleep.

He takes out his phone to check the time and look through his texts; he remembers sending something last night, but can’t recall what exactly.

Garrett snorts when he sees the photo he took of himself, grinning like an idiot, Grace with a faintly amused smile, and Sharky mid-laugh, with the caption: surprise! i lived.

There’s a small pang of disappointment when he notices that there’s no reply from John.

 _Dumbass,_ he internally scolds himself.

\---

Garrett ends up confined to Falls End for roughly a week until his concussion has passed and Mary May deems it safe enough to remove the stitches.

It’s the longest seven days of his life of just sitting around town and he had been pretty close to tearing his hair out from the mind numbing boredom. It’s been nice not having to constantly look over his shoulder and having Boomer around and just… pretending for a while that everything is normal; no cult, no time loops, no weird infatuation with John Seed.

It’s nice, but a week of ignoring Hope County’s problems – and his own problems – is too much.

First thing he does once he’s given the all clear is borrow Nick’s plane and blow up Peggie property that Kim points out to him over the radio.

\---

Garrett and Grace have finished reclaiming the Gardenview Packing Facility, almost an entire week since he got the stitches removed, when he hears from the herald of Holland Valley.

“Deputy… you’ve had your fun. But all sinners must Confess. This is the will of the Father. My men are coming for you. I’ll see you soon.”

Then there’s the little click and the radio call is done.

“John is fucking determined to sink his hooks into you, Deputy,” Dutch’s voice comes in over the radio next. Between the two of them it’s no wonder Garrett can never get a word in. “I know you got out by the skin of your teeth last time, but don’t underestimate this bastard. Dutch out.”

Garrett looks at Grace and she shrugs at him.

“It’s your call.”

“You should probably head back to Falls End for now. I’ll lead his hunting party away, give them the run around.”

Grace nods at him and heads off to use one of the trucks left behind.

“Take care of yourself, Garrett. You’re no good to anyone if you’re dead.”

A dry huff of laughter escapes him, a wry half smile on his face, and he sees her off. As soon as Grace is out of sight Garrett starts walking down the road, waiting for John’s Chosen to spot him.

\---

Those damn Bliss bullets – he forgets how bad they are every time.

His vision is blurry when he comes to and he can feel the rope that’s got him secured tightly to the chair and he can hear Hudson’s muffled shouts from across the red tinged room.

As the seconds pass the more Garrett’s vision comes back into focus, seemingly at the same time Hudson quiets and is replaced with John whistling _‘We'll Meet Again.’_ He wonders why the Seed family is obsessed with golden oldies as he watches John walks around the room, setting out his tools for Confession.

There’s a manic glint in the other man’s eyes when he faces Garrett, a too sharp edge to his grin as he tells them about how he came to understand the ‘Power of Yes’ while stapling strips of skin to the wooden backboard of his tool table like that’s a totally normal thing to do.

For John, it probably is.

The sudden, violent slam of the staple gun against the table still makes Garrett jump and Hudson look away.

It’s been too long – years of time loops – since he’s been here in this moment, that Garrett’s forgotten… _this._ The explosive yet controlled anger, how much joy John gets out of scaring others before he carves into them.

John is in front of him now, tattoo gun in hand as he fixes the angle of the lamp.

“Something broke free inside. I wasn’t scared, I was… clear,” John’s saying when Garrett tunes back into the man’s monologue. “I looked up at them and I started to laugh. All I could say was… Yes.”

He drags the word out while he tests the tattoo gun. John gives him a dead eyed smile when he shuts it off.

“I spent my entire life looking for more things to say ‘yes’ to,” John continues to explain, even though Garrett already knows all of this, and tears Garrett’s shirt open, buttons popping off and skittering across the concrete floor. He looks him straight in the eye and their faces are too close, there’s no possible way for Garrett to ignore the cornflower blue directly in front of him. 

“I opened up every hole in my body and when those were filled, I created more.” John leans in closer with every word, leans in until they’re sharing the same air, noses nudged together slightly, causing a low warmth in Garrett’s stomach despite how fucked up this situation is.

And then John’s pulling away from him, a smile on his face again but it looks wrong.

“But it was Joseph who showed me just how selfish I was being.” John picks up the bowl of water and the sponge, starts cleaning the spot on Garrett’s chest where Garrett knows he plans on tattooing ‘Wrath’ to match the ‘Sloth’ on John’s. “Always receiving. Always taking.” 

There’s a look that clouds his face, like he doesn’t quite believe in his own words and that… that more than anything else scares Garrett, because for all he’s joked about John and his belief in the power of ‘yes’ Garrett doesn’t know what could’ve possibly shaken the man’s strong convictions, to make him look doubtful.

He isn’t sure he wants to know.

But then the look is gone and the dead eyed smile makes its return.

“The best gift isn’t the one you get, it’s the one you give and giving takes courage. The courage…” John sets aside the bowl of water and moves back over to the table that holds most of his tools, “to own your sin. To etch it on to your flesh and carry its burden and when you have endured – when you have truly begun to atone – to cut it out like a cancer and display it for all to see.”

John takes a deep breath and releases it.

“My god that’s courage.”

They hold each other’s gaze for a brief moment before John jumps back into motion, picking up a knife sharpening rod from the toolbox he had brought in.

“I’m going to teach you courage. Teach you how to say ‘yes’ so you can confront your weaknesses. Confront your sin.” John’s voice rising in volume and intensity the longer he goes on, pacing back and forth in front of him and Hudson. “You will swim across an ocean of _pain_ and emerge… free.”

John points at him with knife rod, and moves toward him once more. “For only then can you truly begin to atone.” The cold metal of the sharpening rod presses into Garrett’s throat before it’s jerked away and John rests his hands on Garrett’s thighs, leaning forward until they are face to face.

“What is your answer?”

Garrett’s tongue flicks out along his bottom lip as he thinks about it; either way, John plans to rip and tear his way into Garrett’s flesh. The grip on his thighs tightens and Garrett knows there will be bruises later and that’s something he’s noticed about John; the man always holds on so tight – too tight – as if he’s afraid of letting anything slip through his grasp.

“Yes,” Garrett answers, voice barely above a whisper, and he sees the moment the almost desperate hunger in John’s eyes changes into a kind of satiated, impish glee.

“You won’t regret this, I promise,” John whispers into his ear and Garrett can hear a genuine smile in his voice, the little sigh of elation.

\---

Garrett pushes his chair over to the stairs and throws himself down it; maybe not the best idea, but it’s the only one that comes to mind.

He could sneak through the compound, try to go after John and Hudson, but he does remember how he wasn’t able to get through the door to them the first time, so Garrett heads back up the stairs and waits, rubbing his wrists to soothe the sting of the rope burns.

\---

Time seems to drag on for an eternity while Garrett waits for John to return.

Garrett isn’t even sure what his plan is right now; all he knows is that he won’t be able to get Hudson out of here yet. The guilt of not being able to help her or Pratt immediately rests like a lead weight in his gut.

People put way too much trust in his ability to get things done. Garrett’s only one man, not a one man army like everyone seems to think.

“Well, it seems like you finally learned to stay put for once,” John says when he returns, looking pleasantly surprised, though there is tightness to his smile. “Although preferably you’d still be in your seat.”

“We can’t always get what we want.”

“No, we can’t,” John agrees quietly, stepping slowly closer, his gaze boring into Garrett as if he’s trying to see down into his soul. John’s eyes slide from Garrett’s face to Garrett’s still exposed chest then over to the toolbox that Garrett had been looking through only minutes earlier and John stills. “Don’t even think about it.”

“Bold of you to assume I think about things,” Garrett replies, trying and failing to suppress a mischievous grin. Before John can do anything Garrett blows the Bliss he found into the other man’s face.

The drug works almost instantly; Garrett can see the tension drain from John’s shoulders and catches him as he sways on his feet a little too much, helps lower him to the floor.

“Man, you are really out of it. Must’ve been a stronger concentration than I thought,” Garrett says, watching John watch him with a dreamlike smile. “Thanks for ruining my favorite shirt, by the way. Thought it was about time for a new look. Maybe I should grow my hair out, really go for that bodice-ripper love interest look.”

John giggles – _fucking giggles_ – and runs his fingers through Garrett’s hair.

“Think that’s funny, huh? Well it kind of is, but I’m going to hold onto this as payment for the shirt,” Garrett tells him as he undoes the earring on John’s left ear, puts it through the surprisingly unclosed hole in his own ear. “I gotta tell you, I’m surprised this hasn’t closed up. Haven’t worn earrings since I was in high school and had those god awful frosted tips.”

There’s a hum of contentment coming from John when he notices the earring. Garrett rolls his eyes and shoves down the fondness trying to rise up. It’s weird, this is weird.

Garrett carefully removes John’s hands and stands up, ready to leave; he thinks about taking the key that hangs around the man’s neck and using it to free Hudson. Ultimately he decides against it; the dose of Bliss won’t last long and Garrett doesn’t have any weapons on his person.

He makes it out of the bunker mostly undetected.

\---

When he makes it back to Falls End Mary May gives him a knowing look when she catches sight of the earring he now wears. She’s clearly not thrilled, but she won’t say anything about it other than telling him to not lose focus.

He heads out of town, Boomer and Grace in tow, within the hour.

\---

Garrett spends most of the next two weeks with his phone turned off and freeing captured people from ugly mayonnaise colored vans and destroying shrines in Faith’s region.

He knows the next major encounter he’ll have with John will end in the other man’s death and Garrett… 

Garrett never wanted to kill any of them. He knows that the Seed family has done a lot of fucked up shit to the people of Hope County, but he never wanted to kill anyone, even the first time around.

If anything, he wants the Seeds to own up to everything they’ve done; they’ll probably never be able to make up for all the wrongs they’ve committed, but that doesn’t mean they shouldn’t at least try.

He hasn’t brought this up with anyone. 

Garrett knows that more than a few of his friends will object to letting any of the Seeds live, but Garrett remembers the alternative, what led to him being trapped repeating time over and over again. He knows that going down the path he went the first time leads to fire and death and he doesn’t want that, is pretty sure that whatever is causing the time loops doesn’t want that either.

He wouldn’t be able to tell how he knows that, just that it’s the feeling he gets.

So he spends two weeks out in the wild trying desperately to think of a way to keep John Seed - and the rest of the Seed family as well - alive.

\---

Garrett dreams of John’s death every night he’s out in the forests.

He dreams of it and tastes ash in his mouth each time he wakes from it.

An idea – a ridiculously simple idea – comes to him early one morning. It’s nothing fancy, but it doesn’t need to be.

\---

“So what’s the plan, sugar?” Adelaide asks him once Tulip is up in the air and carrying them towards Holland Valley.

“Blow up every silo we can find and tear down that eyesore.” Garrett points to the YES sign that looms in the distance. “Basically piss off John as much as possible. Once we do that I need you to wait for my signal at _this_ location.”

Garrett circles where his house is located on the spare map he has.

“Don’t worry if you see any of the lights on or anything, that’s just Doc Lindsey and Boomer.”

“I hope you know what you’re doing, honey,” Adelaide tells him, serious look on her face.

A somber smile flashes across his face.

“I hope so too.”

\---

“Are you absolutely sure about this? I just don’t feel right about letting you walk in there by yourself.”

“I’ll be fine,” Garrett assures her once more as he secures the straps of his parachute. “Remember, wait for my signal and I’ll have further instructions.”

Then Garrett is opening the helicopter door and jumping from it. He can distantly hear his heart pounding in his ears as he falls towards the town below and pulls open his chute.

Main Street is empty when he lands, all the shop windows boarded over again. Falls End looks like a ghost town. Garrett waits until Tulip becomes a tiny dot in the sky before he heads over to the church, the bell tolling ominously.

The stench of blood and decay from the crows nailed to the wall makes him feel sick, bile teasing at the back of his throat.

Standing in front of the door, Garrett hesitates. He hopes Nick got his message and that he’ll listen to what Garrett told him.

(He really hopes Nick will listen to what he said; he knows it doesn’t make sense and that Nick will more than likely have questions after this, but that’s a problem for later. Hopefully Garrett will have come up with a convincing lie by then.)

Taking a deep breath, Garrett pushes open the door and braces for the hit he knows is coming.

\---

He wakes to the feel of blood crusted around his nose and mouth, the press of a boot on his collarbone, the weight of John straddling him, the sound of the tattoo gun, and the sting of the needle and ink.

(He can still feel the edge of the knife he hid in his boot.)

Garrett grunts on a particularly nasty sting which causes John to look up at him.

The dead eyed yet manic smile makes an appearance as well as a flash of possessive hunger when John’s eyes catch on the earring Garrett is still wearing.

“You will not hide any longer,” John says softly, his eyes flicking back and forth between Garrett’s face and where he’s etching ‘Wrath’ onto Garrett’s chest. “I will make sure of it.”

As soon as John has finished his work and stands, Garrett is hauled up and forward by two Peggies to the front of the church. It seems like there are more Peggies this time around, sitting in the pews. He notices Jerome’s bible torn to shreds, the gun that it housed is missing.

It’s unfortunate, but at least his plan doesn’t rely on the gun. No, his plan is all about timing and Nick Rye and he prays to any deity out there that might be listening that nothing screws this up.

Confession begins and when Jerome refuses to recite what John tells him to a Peggie pistol-whips him and he crumples to the floor three things happen in quick succession.

Mary May lashes out at John, drawing the attention of the closest cultists, Nick kicks out at the one who hit Jerome, adding to the small chaos enough for Garrett to free one hand, reach down and grab the knife from his boot and stab the other Peggie holding him right through their cheek, making them howl in pain. 

The entire church erupts into a flurry of motion when the main door is kicked open and resistance members storm in, guns blazing.

\---

They still end up in a dogfight.

It’s brutal and exhausting and Garrett tries not to think too much about how fucking lucky he is that his plan worked at all, about how easily it could’ve failed. Just a knife and Nick doing as Garrett asked.

Now he just had to make sure John Seed survived this.

“Adelaide,” Garrett says into his radio, “I need you in the sky; follow me at a distance. I’m in the silver plane and I need you to land where I do when I radio you again.”

He doesn’t answer Adelaide’s questions, his only focus on getting John out of his plane so they can meet on equal ground. Thankfully Nick doesn’t join their fight, goes after the Peggies in the sky around them.

John’s plane finally goes down after what feels like hours and Garrett immediately abandons his own.

Once he’s landed on the ground he finds John waiting for him by a barn that had been long since stolen by the cult, gun drawn and righteous fury on his face.

Garrett pulls out his pistol and fires at him.

\---

The gunfight feels like it takes even longer.

Garrett’s got a bullet in the meat of his thigh – silently thankful that isn’t a through and through – and he’s mostly making his shots miss.

When his pistol clicks empty he tosses it aside and waits until there are no more bullets coming from John.

Garrett finds him on the other side of a bale of hay, looking bloody and worn out, eyes half lidded. Immediately, he sets about putting pressure on the bleeding wounds, radios for Adelaide to come pick them up.

John coughs and gives him a defeated smile. “Looks like you won again, Deputy.”

“I wouldn’t say that,” Garrett says as he does his best to make a tourniquet for John’s leg. When John doesn’t answer Garrett looks up from his work, sees the man’s eyes have fallen shut.

“Hey, look at me.” Garrett slaps his face, gently but firm, until his eyes flutter open. "Look at me, John."

John huffs out a joyless laugh. “All I do is look at you. That’s all I do and now the Gates of Eden are closed to me and everything is crystal clear to me now. I’ve been damned. Damned to live through your death over and over again.”

_What._

Garrett’s heart stops for a moment.

“It doesn’t matter if you don’t believe me. You won’t remember this,” John says, clearly misreading the look of shock on Garrett’s face. His eyes close again. “It doesn’t matter.”

“John—”

But John has passed out and the sound of Tulip’s blades drowns out Garrett’s voice anyway.

 _What the hell is going on,_ Garrett thinks as he and Adelaide carefully load John into the helicopter.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> next chapter is going to be done from john's perspective. i know a few of you have been waiting for that, so y'all got something to look forward to.


	6. rose-colored boy

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> can i just say, writing from john's perspective is v difficult, like it's one of the most challenging things i've encountered w/ writing in general. okay so i'm just gonna post this before i overthink it lmao

He failed, yet again.

At this point he really shouldn’t be surprised. No matter what he does either Deputy Garrett Rook dies or he does and well… Here they are.

John is bleeding out while Garrett is trying to stop it, to change fate, and John wants to kiss him and shove him away at the same time. He doesn’t know why Garrett is trying so hard to save him; it was always going to end this way. John watches Garrett work with a tunnel vision focus, the way his hands move deftly and with confidence and lets his thoughts drift.

He’s so tired and resigned to the fact that he’ll either die for good or eventually continue this repetitive Hell and end up in the church again.

He hears Garrett saying something to him, but it’s as if he’s sunken down into the earth and is stuck in the dirt, waiting for the next repeat. A few well-placed slaps drags him back into the present, and then all he sees is Garrett, face pinched in concern.

When was the last time someone cared about him who wasn’t one of his siblings?

“Look at me, John.”

A small laugh escapes him – threatens to bubble into hysterical but doesn’t – because what does he think John has been doing this entire time?

“All I do is look at you,” he finds himself answering, painfully honest. “That’s all I do and now the Gates of Eden are closed to me and everything is crystal clear to me now. I’ve been damned. Damned to live through your death over and over again.”

The moment the words leave his mouth Garrett tenses up, looking at John with shocked green eyes, and he knows he screwed it up, that Garrett must think he’s crazy. Well, crazier than Garrett probably already thinks he is, because living through the same general events over and over again? Who would believe that?

“It doesn’t matter if you don’t believe me. You won’t remember this,” John tells him, because it doesn’t. They’ll start over again in the church or they won’t and this Hellish nightmare will finally be over. “It doesn’t matter.”

John takes one last look at Garrett, at the earring Garrett wears, and mourns briefly for what could’ve been, for what he never had but lost anyway. He’s never able to keep anyone or anything.

He lets everything fade away and sleeps.

\---

John remembers the first time he found himself in the church after he died.

The Deputy standing in front of Joseph, cuffs at the ready, the uneasy Sheriff, the arrogant US Marshal.

_What is this?_

He tries to convince himself that what he saw, what he lived through, was nothing more than elaborate daydream, but the way his gaze kept catching on the Deputy, the way he couldn’t look away, told him that something was off.

Jacob and Faith were discussing something next to him, unconcerned with his lack of input, while he studied the dark haired man, as if trying to prove to himself that the man arresting his brother was not the same one from his dream.

But then Garrett looked at him and John _knew_ it wasn’t some dream, that it had happened, that John had died at his hands.

Anger and desire hit him like a flash fire; all-consuming and impossible to ignore.

When the lawmen and his brother leave the church, John turns to his remaining siblings and joins their planning.

Roughly an hour later the world around him snaps him back into the church, the Deputy standing in front of Joseph and the US Marshal repeating his phrase: “Cuff him, Rook.”

Unease makes a home in John’s gut.

\---

It happens five more times after that, at random intervals.

When the total reaches eight, John has had enough. He wants answers.

Without even thinking about it he strides down the aisle, fixated on the Deputy, and reaches out. A small thrill of vindictive joy shoots through him when the Deputy startles at his touch, Envy green eyes looking right at him and he has no idea what to say.

“Mr. Seed, step away,” the Sheriff order him, as if he has any authority here. Instead of doing as the Sheriff says, John ignores him, keeping his full attention on the Deputy.

 _Say something._ Nothing comes to mind.

“It’s alright, brother,” Joseph’s voice cuts through the chaotic thoughts plaguing John.

John lets go of the other man then, at the implied order from his brother. He stands there in the threshold and watches them go.

“What was that about?” Jacob asks as he comes up and stands next to him.

“Nothing,” John tells him.

Faith moves to the other side of him and looks at him out of the corner of her eye, a smug quirk to her ever present smile.

John glowers at her but doesn’t say anything else.

\---

“You’ve got your eye on the Deputy.” 

It’s not a question.

“Is that your reason for calling me here, dear sister?”

Faith tilts her head, an impish smile on her face and watches him like a hawk watches its prey.

“Not the only reason. You know I worry,” Faith tells him in a saccharine tone. “We all worry. You’ve been a bit… _off_ since they foolishly tried to arrest Joseph. What’s wrong?”

Where would he even begin?

Time keeps starting over for apparently no reason? And no one seems to notice it but him? That there’s a part of him – a ridiculous, completely absurd part of him – that wants someone else to remember these time loops too?

He says none of this.

“There’s nothing wrong, Faith.”

She hums, plucking a Bliss flower out of a nearby barrel full of them, and places it in the pocket of his vest.

“I understand if you feel you can’t talk about it with me, but you shouldn’t bottle it up. Perhaps you should speak of it with Joseph?”

John sighs in annoyance at her pestering, but he’ll go speak with Joseph; she probably already brought it up with their brother, so John knows there’s no avoiding it now. Faith grins and pats him on the shoulder lightly before wandering off into the fields of Bliss, her singing drawing the attention of the nearby faithful.

\---

John never makes it back to the main compound to talk with Joseph.

The Deputy – Garrett Rook, as he’s found out from Hudson – has been wreaking havoc across Holland Valley and taunting him with it, as evidenced by the text he gets from his spare phone.
    
    
    catch me if you can

First he steals the hunting dog John had planned to have delivered to Jacob, then he steals the seaplane that had been confiscated from the Ryes, slaughtered the faithful, and destroyed the sign he had built to remind the sinners that the power of ‘Yes’ would always be waiting for them to accept it.

John sets out with a hunting party upon his return.

\---

They find Garrett in an open field by himself.

John signals for them to open fire on the man. As soon as the first shot rings out, Garrett’s head whips around in their direction before he runs. And John gives chase, his pulse thundering in his ears. Eventually Garrett gets hit with one of the Bliss infused bullets and goes down like a ton of bricks.

“This one?” one of the faithful asks him as they turn the drugged man over.

“Yes.”

Garrett’s head lolls in his direction at the sound of John’s voice and John leans in, making sure that he’s the only thing Garrett sees.

“I’m not letting you get away this time,” John tells him and means it; he will keep this man, chained if he has to, but he will be damned if he lets this sinner slip through his grasp again.

\---

John’s time with the Duncan family is burned into his memory, no possible way to forget it even if he wanted to.

And there were moments where he very much did want to forget, but mostly he kept those memories and the emotions associated with them tucked away in a corner of his mind; always looming, always present, but never at the forefront.

“Your soul is tainted, broken,” Mrs. Duncan had told him when he first went to live with them. “But do not worry, we will fix it.”

Fix _you._

But there was nothing to fix, John had already given in to ‘Yes.’

They thought him a monster, a devil in disguise, and tried to fix him.

All they did was make something much worse than a monster and released it out into the world.

\---

The Baptism goes much like how it did the first time.

He stops the faithful from bringing Garrett to the shore.

“This one’s not clean.”

John lunges, forcing Garrett underneath the waters once more, Envy green distorted by the murky river.

He does not like to be ignored, to have their work questioned and mocked by one who clearly doesn’t believe. John pulls him up before he can drown.

When Garrett comes up once more, he looks disoriented, gaze foggy, and looks through John as if he isn’t there and that _stings._

John pulls at Garrett’s dark hair, tilting his head back until Garrett finally, _finally,_ looks at him. _Sees_ him.

“Do you mock the cleansing, John?” comes from somewhere behind him, somewhere on the riverbank, and John stills.

“No, Joseph,” John answers his brother, head bowed in deference. He watches, completely docile, as the faithful bring Garrett to Joseph and waits until Joseph beckons him forward, listens to the warning he has heard before from Joseph, to not let his sin get the better of him.

His brother leaves as suddenly as he had arrived and John crowds into Garrett’s space, whispers “You are mine,” his mouth barely touching the shell of Garrett’s ear; there’s a constricting warmth in his chest at the shiver and tiny gasp that comes from the other man.

\---

Not even an hour had passed since the cleansing when John finds himself back in the church.

The repetition of this moment in time is wearing thin; it reminds him too much of his time with the Duncan family, how they made him admit his sins over and over and _over._

He stands with Jacob and Faith and wonders if the Duncans were right, if John’s soul was too tainted to be saved and this is his punishment.

He wonders if this is Hell.

\---

John finally finds out what keeps causing time to repeat itself.

The loops always start the same; Garrett arrests Joseph and then the helicopter crashes. This much John knows to be true. It happens every time.

Every time except this one.

Instead of arresting Joseph, Garrett puts his handcuffs away and leaves. The Marshal and the Sheriff begin to argue as they follow him, but John pays them no attention. No, he’s too focused on this sudden change to an otherwise rigid script.

Garrett’s barely out the door when one of the faithful hits him with a shovel and John stops breathing.

Hudson starts shouting and that breaks John out of his daze, Wrath pushing up from within him as he heads toward Garrett and ignoring the confused looks from his siblings.

John doesn’t even realize that he’s shouting as well.

The shovel comes down once more and John sees the blood and bits of bone and then everything snaps so sharply that he feels winded when they’re back in the church, like nothing had happened.

“Cuff him, Rook.”

John watches Garrett and almost doesn’t believe he’s real.

\---

John is at a loss.

After he gives Garrett his spare phone, after his moment of weakness with the whiskey, John goes to speak with Joseph. He tells his brother what is troubling him though he doesn’t go into a lot of specifics, except for the fact that time keeps repeating itself. Joseph takes this in stride, doesn’t tell him it’s not possible.

“Perhaps this is God testing you, John,” Joseph suggests. “Testing your resolve, to prove that you won’t let your sin rule you.”

“If I prove myself, will that make this stop?”

His brother smiles at him reassuringly.

“You’ll have to find out for yourself, brother. Only you can figure out what needs to be done to pass through this trial.”

\---

John is furious when he sees the split and bleeding wound on the back of Garrett’s head when the man is brought back to his house.

“Who did this?” he demands coldly, the two faithful who brought the unconscious Garrett in shaking in fear.

“The hunters you sent out after him would probably know,” one of them manages to stutter.

John pinches the bridge of his nose and he bites the inside of his cheek in an attempt to calm himself. It isn’t working very well.

“Take him upstairs. Stitch that wound up; I don’t want him dying.”

They nod and scurry up the stairs with Garrett slumped between them like a ragdoll. John snatches up the radio he left on the table and heads up to his office; there’s a few of the faithful who need to be reminded why disregarding his specific instructions is a _very_ bad idea.

\---

In all honesty, John shouldn’t have been surprised that Garrett was no longer in bed, that the man had wandered off. It’s something he’s noticed a long time ago, Garrett’s inability to stay in one place and it frustrates John to no end.

He can’t even pretend that there isn’t a blind panic that lances through him when he opens the door and finds the bed empty.

Door after door that he opens reveals nothing, no dark haired man with smirking eyes who moves as silent as a ghost waiting to tease him, like all of this is just a game to him. 

John heads for the stairs once it’s clear that Garrett is not anywhere on the second floor. He finds him in the library with a book of Robert Frost of all things. A tension within him relaxes but the anger remains.

It isn’t until Garrett looks up at him that John realizes that he had just been standing there, enraptured by the sight of the other man bathed in the light of the setting sun and he’s hit with a sudden, desperate need to be near him, to touch him.

To possess the man in front of him, to keep him and everything that he is. He wants to tear his way through Garrett’s flesh, pull it back to expose his still beating, bleeding heart and wrap his fist around it.

John looks at him and feels his shriveled heart swell in his chest.

\---

He wonders, not for the first time, if this is Hell, his divine punishment from God for failing to convert Garrett and that now instead of the fiery flames of eternal damnation he must live with all of his failures displayed in front of him. 

\---

He’d been lying awake, unable to sleep, when his phone chimes on the table next to his bed.

Opening up the text, he fully expected it to be one of Garrett’s taunts (meant to rile him up) or a message from Faith asking him about Garrett (also meant to rile him up). What he got instead was a picture of Garrett with two people he vaguely recognizes and John feels his heart lurch in his chest.

Dimples.

Garrett has _dimples_ when he smiles, open and happy, and John feels like he’s losing his damn mind. He’s been stuck in this nightmare for what feels like years and what gets him, what makes his mind stutter to a complete halt?

The fact that Garrett Rook has dimples and that he’s capable of smiling like that…

John is disappointed with himself; he’s grown soft on this man, this sinner. At this rate he’ll be stuck in this Hell for the rest of eternity, never knowing peace.

He studies the picture one last time, want tinged with shame burning away in his chest, his finger hovering over the delete option.

He saves it instead and tries to sleep.

\---

There’s a desperation that claws its way into him, makes its home under his skin; he’s running out of time in this current loop – the longest one so far – to convert the Deputy, to triumph where he failed the first time.

When he hasn’t heard of any news of Garrett after two weeks, John decides it’s time to head to Falls End. His hand has been forced now, but he will make it work to his advantage; even if he never makes it to the promised paradise – he’s long since lost any hope that he’ll make it there – maybe he can at least finally rest if he fixes his biggest mistake, turn his grandest failure into some sort of victory.

He fails yet again.

\---

John wakes with a sharp inhale in a room he doesn’t recognize.

With bleary eyes he takes in his surroundings, notices the TV playing reruns of Friends of all things, volume kept low, and is the only source of light in the room.

John tries to lift himself upright so that he’s sitting instead of flat on his back, but stops when a dull throb of pain radiates from his side and drops back down with a hiss of pain.

“Hey, slow your roll there. You’ve got like, a million stitches and bruised ribs,” a tired voice next to him mumbles and a warm hand gently presses down on his chest, probably to keep him from trying to get up again. John looks and there’s Garrett on the other half of the bed, looking at him with unfocused eyes. “Doc would be upset if you went and popped your stitches after he did such a good job of patching you up. Plus you're really doped up on whatever painkillers Doc Lindsey gave you, so you probably have zero coordination right now.”

“Where…?” John croaks out but Garrett shushes him.

“My house. It was the only place I could think of to safely hide you. And before you ask, you’ve been out for a couple of days. Also, I borrowed your key and freed Hudson and everyone else you had locked up in your bunker,” Garrett tells him around a wide yawn.

John grunts and sinks back into the soft mattress.

“Oh, and what you said about living through my death over and over again—”

He groans and rubs at his face. “Look, forget about it. I was—”

“I thought I was the only one who remembered. About time repeating itself.”

That wakes John up completely and he stares wide eyed at Garrett.

“You—”

“But that’s a conversation for tomorrow,” Garrett interrupts him. “Right now we’re either watching Friends or we’re gonna go back to sleep.”

“Can I at least ask you something?”

“As long as it isn’t about the time loops, sure.”

John scowls, but doesn't fight him on this; his head is too hazy to really focus on that conversation anyway.

“Why are we watching Friends and why are we in the same bed? Aren’t you worried I’ll try to kill you?”

“Mm, well, to answer your second question, we’re sharing because Doc has the spare room and someone has to make sure you don’t tear your stitches out or fuck yourself up even worse. And if you were serious about trying to kill me you would’ve done it ages ago. Plus we’d just end up back in the church, as you well know,” Garrett says quietly, pressing his cheek against John’s shoulder and watches the show on TV through half lidded eyes. “As for your first question, it was the first thing I could find on Netflix.”

He hums in acknowledgement and presses his nose into Garrett’s hair.

“I always hated this show. Never could stand Ross.”

Garrett laughs and warmth settles in John’s bones at the sound of it.

“No one likes Ross, man. He’s like, every bad _“Nice Guys finish last”_ trope rolled into one.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> idk if next chapter i should go back to garrett's perspective or do another john chapter to try and get more of a feel for writing him.


	7. i'm a fucking basket-case until i'm able to see your face

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> here's another john chapter (it's also kind of a filler chapter? basically it's here so i can map out the story a bit better, but i wanted to give y'all something while i do that). i make no promises, but i might do another john chapter later on in the story.
> 
> john is pretty toned down in this but he's still very much a violent and angry dude, do not be fooled lmao 
> 
> hope everybody's having a good weekend

He always wakes with the sun.

This time it seems he passed out in someone’s dorm; it’s not the first time this has happened, and probably won’t be the last. All around him are other law students who are all still snoring away, half empty liquor bottles litter the room.

John ignores the little white lines left on the coffee table as he tries to find his discarded shirt and figure out where his shoes went.

There are a couple of groans and hissed expletives when he steps on a few strangers in his hungover state, but he doesn’t really care. Cares more about his lost shirt and shoes and the little white lines he’s trying to ignore.

He finds his shirt under one of the people still passed out and his shoes kicked under the couch. John redresses quickly and heads for the door, but is stopped by the maw of the hollowness in his chest. It’s always there, always with him; he can only ever appease it, can’t get rid of it.

Turning back, he heads straight for the lines on the table. When finally leaves, there’s one less line of white powder and John’s mind buzzes.

\---

The next time John wakes up it’s morning, the TV is off, and he’s alone in bed. The space next to him still has traces of warmth, so he hasn’t been by himself for very long. He lays there for a few minutes before levering himself out of the bed; the pain that tugs at his ribs almost makes him abandon that idea, but he’d rather not be stuck in bed all day.

It’s odd being upright, vertigo making him stumble and have to use the wall to keep himself standing.

The bedroom door is already open and the floorboards creak as he moves down the hall to the stairs. It’s a struggle, but he manages to make it down to the first floor without falling over. Nothing in the house looks new, John notices as he slowly moves around. So far the only thing that actually looks relatively new was the bed. 

Compared to his house Garrett’s actually looks lived in; a home.

There’s a dull, restless ache that isn’t because of his injuries.

Eventually he wanders into the kitchen, his stomach gnawing on itself; he doesn’t know when he last ate. And there sits Garrett, haloed by the early morning light coming in through the windows, studying a map covered in writing.

Garrett looks up at him – a half smile with the hint of dimples that John had been finding himself increasingly distracted by before his last stand in Falls End – and pushes out the chair next to him.

“Doc Lindsey left not too long ago, so we can have that talk now.”

A tiny grunt escapes John as he lowers himself down into the chair, takes a look at the writing on the map, and Garrett slides a plate of toast over to him.

“I don’t know where to even begin with this,” John admits groggily.

“Neither do I,” Garrett replies, sounding small and just as exhausted as John and it sounds wrong to him. Reaching out, John loosely rests a hand on the back of Garrett’s neck, fingertips teasing at Garrett’s ridiculous looking bedhead. The restless ache eases when Garrett leans into his touch, satiates the hungry hollow behind his bruised ribs.

“Start…” Honestly, John doesn’t know either, but it’s maddening knowing only a fraction of what’s going on. “Start with what happened after you killed me the first time.”

Garrett snorts.

“I’ve only ever killed you once.”

“I’m still not entirely convinced I’m not dead right now.”

There’s a reluctantly amused look on Garrett’s face, but he starts talking.

\---

“You should stay,” Tanya (Teresa? Tammy. No, he was right the first time, Tanya) tells him, running her hand down his bare back. She thinks this is something more than it really is, that this isn’t just scratching an itch.

John won’t correct her. He could find some usefulness out of this.

After all, it’s not really his fault that he’s a cold, cold man. He’s never pretended to be anything but that. If anything, those who don’t see him as he is are the ones to blame; they willingly throw themselves at his feet, practically begging to be chewed up and spit out.

Tanya repeats herself, a little unsure, and that draws him out of his thoughts. He flashes an apologetic smile that doesn’t reach his eyes – they never do – but she doesn’t see that, only sees what she wants to see.

“Can’t tonight. I’ve got an exam tomorrow and I need to study.”

It’s a lie that falls easily from his mouth and she accepts it as fact, doesn’t even think about questioning it.

He ends up at another bed warmer’s place – Marc, he thinks – before heading back to his own place.

\---

“You ever look at yourself and wonder why you are the way you are?” Garrett asks as they sit on the porch, watching Boomer chase after something through the overgrown grass, the late summer heat making John feel even more sluggish.

John turns the words over in his mind, doesn’t know if Garrett is asking him specifically or just in general.

“Do you?” 

What John does know is that he’s curious about Garrett, about why he is the way he is. He’s noticed a few things in the past week, the way Garrett always walks as close to the wall as possible to keep the floorboards from making too much noise, as if he’s afraid of waking someone up, but there’s no one else here save for them. Or how Garrett spends as much time as possible staying outside of his own home, as if he doesn’t feel safe within its walls except for when he’s in either the kitchen or the bedroom they’ve been sharing.

“Sometimes,” Garrett admits, his gaze still focused on the middle distance, “But I think most of it could be traced back to my childhood, to be honest. What about you?”

“I guess you could say it’s the same for me. But you already knew that.”

Garrett links their pinkies together. “Yeah, I did.”

\---

“This is really fucking stupid,” Mary May Fairgrave says to Garrett. John is sprawled out on the couch in the living room, Boomer curled up on the floor nearby, but he can still hear their conversation. “You should’ve just killed him when you had the chance. This is just gonna come back to bite you on the ass and don’t you dare make that into a joke.”

“Who am I to decide the worth of someone’s life?” John hears Garrett ask. “Look, I know he’s done a lot of fucked up things, hurt a lot of people. I won't lie, I've done my fair share of it too since the helicopter crash. I’m not ignoring that and I’m not asking you to ignore it, either.”

“He’s a god damn psychopath! At least you feel bad about the Peggies you've killed; he doesn’t feel any remorse for anything he’s done. John Seed is _dangerous._ Keeping him alive is _dangerous._ He’s not just gonna change his tune and suddenly decide to help us just because you spared him.”

John will admit, he honestly wouldn’t want to help the resistance; he’d help Garrett, especially if it means he gets to keep him. He knows he's incapable of really caring about anything or anyone else except for a very small number of people. John can literally count the number of people he gives a shit about on one hand.

He wonders which loop made him finally give up on wanting to ensure his place in the paradise Joseph always speaks of.

“Mary May, I’m not asking you to trust him. I’m asking you to trust me.”

“Of course I trust you, don’t ever doubt that. I just don’t want you getting hurt when this blows up in your face.”

At the sound of booted feet coming closer John opens his eyes. Mary May stops a few steps away from the couch and behind her John can see Garrett leaning against the doorframe.

“Listen up,” Mary May says to John. “I don’t like you and if it were up to me you’d be rotting away in a ditch somewhere. That being said, you so much as harm a hair on his head and I won’t be anywhere near as merciful as him.”

Then she turns to look at Garrett. “As for you, you will give me an update everyday so I know that he hasn’t murdered you in your sleep or something.”

“Cross my heart,” Garrett tells her while drawing out an X over his heart.

She leaves after that and Garrett takes a seat on the floor, his back against the couch. Boomer crawls into Garrett’s lap despite being too big to be a lapdog and John runs his fingers through the other man’s black hair.

“She’s right, you know,” John tells him. “I don’t feel bad for what I’ve done and I don’t care about helping the resistance.”

Garrett doesn’t say anything, just tips his head back and locks his gaze with John’s. It’s awkward, the way John moves his face closer, the angle wrong, pulls at his wounds just this shade of too much, but he manages to plant a kiss on Garrett’s lips. It’s brief but it still makes the blood in John’s veins sing.

“But if you want it, I’ll help. So long as I get to keep you.”

Garrett shifts, turning his body towards John, folds his arms on the edge of the couch and rests his chin on top. John tightens his grip in Garrett’s hair, not enough to hurt but it gives away too much.

“You’re mine, right?” The other man’s silence is maddening. John eyes his earring that Garrett is still wearing. “You belong to me?”

John watches as one of Garrett’s eyebrows quirks, a teasing smile stretch across his face.

“You know how I feel about owning people, but yeah, I am. Are you mine?” Garrett asks him, cups the side of John's face with an all too gentle touch. John’s heart twists and his entire being aches to have this man closer, always closer.

_“Yes.”_

\---

It’s a long three weeks for his ribs and most of his other wounds to heal, but he doesn’t mind it too much.

He and Garrett have been here, off in their own closed off world with only room for each other, Boomer, and the occasional appearance of Mary May who always gives John a wary, sour look and updates Garrett on what’s going on in the rest of Hope County.

It’s peaceful, a kind of peace that John doesn’t remember ever truly having. The closest he’s ever come to it was during his college years, being out from directly under the Duncans’ thumb, his first taste of freedom in his whole life. This is the longest he’s gone without the ache of feeling hollow. 

John knows it won’t last, that Garrett will eventually venture back out into the larger world and continue on his self-determined path to fix anyone and everyone’s problems. But John knows that he will follow this man out there, watch his back, keep him from getting killed because he isn’t sure how many more repeats of time either of them can take before they’re driven completely out of their minds.

His only stipulation is that his brothers and sister not be killed, but it seems like Garrett was already dead set on not killing them either, so John will follow him willingly.

It doesn’t matter to John what happens to anyone else.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> on the wiki it states that john struggled with drug and sex addiction so i tried to incorporate it a lil bit in here. i also figure john and faith bonded a little over being recovering addicts


	8. the music or the misery

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> we're back to garrett now and we're moving on to faith's region
> 
> i'll try out writing more action sequences next chapter cuz i really should practice that at least a little bit

Garrett had stayed long enough to make sure that John would pull through; helped Dr. Lindsey after Adelaide helped him pull the bullet out of his thigh. There was a lot of blood and there were a few times Garrett thought John was going to die anyway; that he hadn’t done enough, made him wonder if he should’ve done something sooner.

_“Damned to live through your death over and over again.”_

John’s words play on repeat in his head and Garrett feels like he’s had the rug pulled out from under him and now he’s in a freefall.

“He’s stable,” Doc tells him once they’re done patching up the worst of it. “And incredibly lucky; bruised ribs and the bullets that hit missed anything important. The gunshot wounds I won’t stitch up so they can drain properly for a few days, but I did sew up the cuts he got from the landing.”

“Thank you. I wouldn’t have asked you to do this if things were different, but—”

Lindsey holds up a hand to stop him. “Trust me, this is the least I can do after all you’ve done to help out at the jail. I won’t say I’m not curious as to why you want him alive after all he’s done, but I figure you’ve got a plan.”

Hah, right, a plan. As if Garrett isn’t just flying blind here for the most part and hasn’t totally gotten attached to the banged up psychopath passed out on his bed.

“Well, thanks anyway.” They share a smile, both looking tired. “Look, I know you’re probably dead on your feet, but I was wondering if you could stay a day or two, to make sure nothing goes south.”

Lindsey hums in thought as he starts packing up his equipment. “Well, I could use the time to go over my notes, look into more effective bait for the Angels… Sure, why not?”

Tension drains out of Garrett and he sighs. “Seriously, thank you. I owe you a lot for this.”

\---

This part he remembers; kinda hard to forget almost taking a shiv right through the heart. Because he’s anticipating it he stops a little ways away from the corner Hudson is hiding behind and calls out to her.

“Hudson, you in here?”

“Rook?” Hudson pokes her head out with an owlish stare, a shaky exhale of relief. “It’s you, thank god.”

“I didn’t think you’d come back.” She grabs his forearm and squeezes. Hudson’s voice cracks and wavers, trying to hold back tears. He wouldn’t blame her if she started crying; if their situations were reversed he'd probably be crying right now. “Something… something started happening. All the—All the Peggies started scrambling around. All the doors started closing, locking us inside… I—I thought I was gonna be down here forever.”

Garrett gives her hand a reassuring squeeze. “I wasn’t gonna leave you down here, Hudson. I’m sorry it took so long.”

Hudson smiles, watery and brittle, and Garrett follows her deeper into this abyss of a bunker. 

\---

It’s hours after the celebration in the Spread Eagle over the liberation of Holland Valley and most have long since cleared out for the night, but Garrett has stayed behind to help Mary May and Casey clean up; Hudson passed out in the apartment above the bar hours ago.

“Thanks for letting Hudson stay here,” Garrett says to Mary May as they clean used glasses at the sink. “I would’ve offered my place, but…” 

He doesn’t know how to bring up the fact that John Seed is there and recovering from his injuries. Hudson would probably smother John with a pillow the moment she saw him.

“But she shouldn’t be alone right now and you probably won’t be sticking around for too long before you move on to a different part of the county,” Mary May fills in for him, unknowingly giving him the perfect excuse.

“Exactly.” Garrett should tell her, he really should, but he doesn’t want to ruin anyone’s good mood right now. But he also knows that he shouldn’t hide it from her either. “Hey, Mary May…”

“Hmm?”

“There’s, uh, something I need to tell you, but I…” Mary May stops drying the cup she’s holding and looks at him. Waits for Garrett to find his words. “I need a few days – a week tops – before I can tell you.”

Garrett can feel her gaze catch on John’s earring that he’s still wearing, that he hadn’t even thought to take off.

“Is everything okay?” she asks and for a moment, Garrett wants to tell her everything – about the time loops, the weird whatever it is he has going on with John Seed, just how much blood Garrett really has on his hands, all of it – but he doesn’t, just keeps his mouth shut until the need to word vomit passes.

“Yeah. At least, I hope so.”

\---

All the lights are off when he makes it back to the family farmhouse and for a brief moment he feels like a child again, debating on whether or not he should try sneaking back into the house, risking the chance of waking up his dad and his ire, or if he should just sleep in the mostly unused barn.

Boomer draws him out of his head when the dog gets up from his spot on the porch, ears perking up at his arrival.

“Hey boy,” Garrett coos, ruffling up the dog’s fur, “Hope you haven’t been waiting out here for too long.”

Locking the door behind him and Boomer, Garrett heads up the stairs; the door to the guest room is closed, no light coming from underneath the door, so Lindsey must have gone to sleep. The door to his own room is left slightly ajar and Garrett does his best to squeeze around it, trying to keep it from creaking too loudly.

John is still laying the same way he had been when Garrett left and he wonders if the man has woken up at all, even if it was only for a few moments.

Exhaustion presses down heavily on Garrett’s mind and before he can even second guess himself he strips down to his boxers, crawls into bed next to John, and is asleep before his head even hits the pillow.

\---

John comes in and out of consciousness over the next few days and almost never longer than a few minutes and even then he still seems pretty out of it.

It’s odd to see the man so docile, going where Garrett directs him to and eating whatever Garrett gives him before he inevitably falls asleep again.

When he’s not tending to John, Garrett spends most of his time out in the barn working on his car (one of the very few good things his dad left behind after his death), making modifications to its engine as best he can with limited resources, or out in the old junk shed, trying as best he can to go through three generations worth of junk. 

Clearing out the junk shed has been something he’s done since he was a kid, mostly to occupy himself but it was also how he had made sure there was food in the house for him and mom when he was younger; whenever Garrett found anything that might’ve been worth something he’d hock it at the antique store in Falls End. Looking back on it, most of the stuff that he thought had worth probably didn’t and the money he earned from it was probably just because Mrs. Wilson didn’t have the heart to tell him that it was all worthless.

He only goes back into the house to eat or make sure John eats when Boomer comes out to bark at Garrett over the blaring radio, the dog making his own system to let him know when John is awake, and to see if the Doc needs anything.

In the grand scheme of things, there are a lot more productive things he could be doing right now, but it would take him away from the house and while he trusts the Doc he won’t run the risk of straying too far when John is still recovering, when Garrett needs answers.

\---

Their talk after Doctor Lindsey has left doesn’t give them any answers other than the fact that they both remember the previous repeats; it isn’t very enlightening, but it’s nice to know that Garrett isn’t the only one who knows about the time loops.

Makes it feel more real which is equal parts terrifying and relieving.

\---

When a week has passed – a week spent not doing much more than sitting out on the porch or watching old episodes of Friends or going through the junk shed, all of it with John because now that they both know it feels weird to be too far from one another. Codependent most people would call it, or something close enough to it probably – Garrett asks Mary May to come over. It’s time he came clean about John Seed being alive.

Understandably, she doesn’t take it too well, but at least it isn’t worst case scenario.

(Worst case scenario being that she kills John. Or something along those lines.)

Garrett will find a way to make it up to her. Hopefully.

“Are you mine?” Garrett finds himself asking John after Mary May has left. Normally, Garrett doesn’t really approve of encouraging possessive behavior, but he’s pretty sure this is the only way John knows how to express himself, in terms of _‘kept’_ and _‘keeping.’_

_“Yes,”_ John exhales and drags Garrett closer, up and over him, wedging Garrett in between himself and the back of the couch, pressing kiss after kiss to any part of Garrett he can reach.

After that John can’t seem to keep his hands to himself.

\---

“You sure about this?” Garrett asks he tosses his bag filled with guns and spare ammo into the backseat. “I won’t make you come with if you don’t want to. If you wanna stay here instead I can leave Boomer here with you.”

The three weeks are up, a few days extra to make sure, but John has healed up enough to be able to move around unassisted which means it’s time for Garrett to head back into the fray. Of course when he brought it up with John the man said he’d be coming with and Garrett didn’t really want to tell him no, but he had to make sure John knew he didn’t have to come if he’d rather stay. Essentially turning on one’s family couldn’t be easy and Garrett wouldn’t blame him if John wanted no part of it.

A hand curls around the back of Garrett’s neck and John presses his forehead to Garrett’s temple. “You keep saying that and a guy could get the wrong idea. Besides, I don’t think your dog is going to let you go by yourself either.”

And yep, there’s Boomer already sitting in the backseat next to the bag, waiting for them to get in and start driving to the county jail.

Well, Garrett can’t really argue with that.

\---

The landscape passes by in a blur as they drive through Holland Valley without incident; the area has been cleared of Peggies. Those of the cultists who didn’t flee to Faith or Jacob’s territories got picked up by the resistance in hopes that the brainwashing and Bliss addiction could be undone.

Breaking the addiction should be easy enough, but to undo the brainwashing, the torture won’t be as simple to kick. Garrett remembers his time in the Whitetails under Jacob Seed’s thumb, remembers what being there did to Pratt and to himself. Remembers the music and how he can’t even stand to listen to that song anymore despite not being conditioned to it anymore.

Garrett just hope’s that the people of Falls End will be patient with the recovery process.

There’s the urge to head north instead of east, to go get Pratt, but there’s an itch at the back of his mind, a feeling, that tells him that he should stick with his plan; cut off the food and Bliss and the Whitetails will be easier to liberate.

So instead of making a left like a part of him wants to Garrett keeps following the dirt road up past Dead Man’s River, past O’Hara’s Haunted House, and then they’re crossing over into the Henbane River area and dirt gives way to asphalt.

They drive for roughly another 20 minutes before Garrett pulls off the main road and onto another dirt road.

“Pretty sure this isn’t the jail, unless there have been some serious budget cuts I wasn’t aware of.” It’s the first thing John has said since they left the old farmhouse about an hour ago.

“Well, if you consider watery beer and soggy pizza to be the hallmarks of prison then yeah, this is the jail,” Garrett deadpans as he pulls the car into the 8-Bit Pizza Bar’s parking lot. “We’re just here to pick up some friends… and you also need to change.”

A huff of laughter escapes him at John’s indignant expression. “I mean, you need to change your clothes. Gotta blend in better otherwise Tracey will shoot you as soon as we get to the jail. C’mon,” Garrett nods to the building as he gets out of the car, Boomer leaping out after him. “Don’t want to keep them waiting.”

The 8-Bit Pizza Bar is the same as it always is, the scent of burning grease hanging in the air a constant no matter what anyone does to try to get rid of it. It brings back a few memories of driving out here in the shitty old sedan Billy had during high school and Garrett finds himself wondering what Billy would think of all of this, of all that’s happened to Hope County.

“Holy shit, Amigo,” Sharky says when he catches sight of John and it draws Garrett out of his thoughts and Hurk comes out from one of the back rooms as he shifts so he’s standing slightly in front of John; he doesn’t think Sharky or Hurk would try to attack John if Garrett asked them not to, which is why he asked them to meet him out here, but he’s learned not to assume anything about anyone. “I thought you were pullin’ my leg, but I guess not.”

“Why would I joke about this?” Garrett asks as he catches the new boots Hurk tosses to him and undoes the laces of the boots he’s wearing right now.

Sharky shrugs. “I dunno man, you got a weird sense of humor sometimes.”

Garrett sticks his tongue out at John when he snorts while Sharky and Hurk head out front with Boomer to wait for them. “Here Chuckles, put these on. We’re going to be doing a lot of walking after swinging by the jail and those shoes you got on won’t do much to stop you from getting blisters.”

He hands over his broken-in boots and puts on the new ones then takes off his flannel and tosses it at John’s head, leaving Garrett in an old Testicle Festival tank top. “Your shirt is way too fancy so wear that instead.”

John raises an eyebrow at the tank top and Garrett rolls his eyes. Once John has changed shirts Garrett hands him a baseball hat and a pair of sunglasses. He takes a step back to get a good look at the disguise and notices the bit of ‘Sloth’ on John’s chest showing through and steps into the other man’s space to button up the flannel a little more to hide it better.

“Not the direction I thought you’d go,” John whispers in his ear, tone suggestive, and hooks his fingers in the belt loops on Garrett’s jeans, pulling him closer. “But I’m not complaining.”

“Such a horn dog,” Garrett chastises but there’s no heat behind it. “Gonna have to save that thought for later. We got work to do.”

He links their pinkies together briefly before heading out the front door to where Sharky, Hurk, and Boomer were waiting for them.

\---

Making it into the jail goes smoothly, but now Garrett has to tell the Sheriff and convince him to not string up John Seed.

“Deputy,” Sheriff Whitehorse greets him when Garrett walks up to the radio table in the back of the main cell block, John and the others waiting by the door. “Good to see you. Congratulations on Holland Valley, by the way. What can I do for you?”

Taking a deep breath, he tries to calm his nerves; it doesn’t really work and fuck, he doesn’t remember his plan for this conversation at all.

“Sheriff, there’s something I need to tell you… Aw hell, I don’t even know where to begin.” Garrett rubs at his mouth in frustration; this is why he prefers not speaking at all, finds most things easier without words, which is why when he needs them he struggles to find the right ones. “About Holland Valley—Look, I—”

There’s an amused look on the Sheriff’s face and Garrett clamps his mouth shut.

“If this is about what I think it is, Doctor Lindsey has already informed me,” Whitehorse tells Garrett in a quiet, reassuring voice that reminds him a lot of William. The Sheriff chuckles at the shocked look on Garrett’s face before taking a slightly more serious tone. “I can’t say I’m thrilled about it. If it were anyone else I’d seriously question their decision making, but you’ve done a lot of good – a lot more than I’m able to – so I trust you know what you’re doing here.”

“What? Just like that, no questions asked?” Garrett asks, feeling uneasy, waiting for the other shoe to drop because this was way too easy. Sure, he came in expecting Whitehorse to be more accepting of his decision than say Hudson would be, but he thought there would’ve at least been some arguing.

“Well you haven’t steered us wrong yet, and I don’t think you will, Deputy. If you vouch for him then I’ll support your decision. The others will come around eventually, though I think Tracey will be the hard sell here.”

A bark of laughter leaves Garrett. Sheriff Whitehorse’s level-headed personality surprises him at every turn; the man is honestly one of the better bosses he’s ever had. 

“Yeah… yeah, I vouch for him,” Garrett tells him, all the tension he’d been carrying suddenly draining from him.

Sheriff Whitehorse claps him on the shoulder, nearly knocking Garrett over. “Good, because there’s a job for you. Need you to go to a place called the Misery; it’s where Faith sends captured resistance members. You take that place out and I bet a lot of people here would be willing to overlook your friend there.”

\---

Taking out the Misery went alright up until reinforcements showed up. After that things got a little too chaotic, a couple of close calls. They had to call in Adelaide for air support at one point. This part of the Henbane is stained red, but the current will carry it away, dilute it eventually.

Garrett watches Sharky and Hurk talking – or at least try to – with John and has to stifle a laugh at the baffled expression on his face.

“I guess I’ll be giving those two a lift back to the marina,” Adelaide says and Garrett nods. “Good to see your plan worked out alright, sweetheart.”

“I am too,” Garrett replies with a half-smile.

Adelaide hums in agreement. “He’s cute; crazy, but cute. That your type, Deputy?”

“Something like that.”

Shading her eyes with her hand, Adelaide looks up at the sky. “Should probably get going, don’t wanna miss Xander doing yoga. Best part of my day. C’mon boys, time to go!”

John heads over to Garrett when Sharky and Hurk try to race each other to the helicopter, Boomer trotting alongside him, and stands close as they watch a packed Tulip lift up into the air.

Something clicks into place, snaps into focus, in the world around them, Garrett can _feel_ it. John can too if the way he looks at him indicates anything. Neither is sure what it is, what it means, but it’s like a lock in the universe sliding into place. It doesn't make much sense, but it's the only way Garrett knows how to explain it.

After a few moments of just looking at each other Garrett’s mouth quirks into a smile.

“Wanna go reclaim a haunted hotel?”


	9. reeling through the midnight streets

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> it's very late (or early depending on how you look at it) so i'm gonna go crash. i'll fix any typos and mistakes later.

It’s dark by the time they’ve circled around to face the back of the King’s Hot Springs Hotel, Garrett observing the cultists through his binoculars.

“There’s at least a dozen of them,” Garrett informs John, who is holding Boomer by the dog’s collar to keep the dog from tearing off after the Peggies in the hotel. “And two sirens. We take care of those and clearing this place out should be easy.”

“You have a plan or are we just winging it?”

“Hmm… both?” Garrett rolls his eyes at John’s unimpressed look. “Wait here with Boomer until I’ve turned off both sirens. That’s about as much of a plan as I’ve got.”

“Truly awe-inspiring,” John deadpans.

“Smartass.”

\---

Getting to the first siren is a cakewalk.

He goes from crate to crate, crouched low to the ground, careful to move at the same time the patrolling Peggies do. The sickly sweet stench of Bliss in the air means the cultists on guard are a bit more vigilant; a fresh shipment heading off to wherever Faith deems it most important. One wrong move and it’s back to “Cuff him, Rook” and the reality of that makes Garrett ridiculously nervous.

He’d hate having to go through months’ worth of progress again. Though if it does happen Garrett figures he and John could save a lot of time now that they’re both aware, but that still isn’t a comforting thought; with Garrett’s luck they’d get stuck at the beginning for who knows how long.

Popping open the panel that covers the sirens wiring, Garrett prays to anything out there that might be listening and sets about disabling it as quickly and quietly as he can.

The tiny green light at the top flickers off and none of the Peggies seem to notice, so Garrett continues to stay low and heads for the cover of the hotel’s kitchen. It should be easier for him to get to the next siren from here and… it’s pretty much surrounded by cultists and their trucks.

_Fuck._

Maybe he could toss out some dynamite? But they’re trying to go for stealth here and he doesn’t remember if there’s a third siren out front or not. He could try sending John a text, have him make some sort of distraction to draw away their attention long enough for Garrett to get to the siren’s wiring panel. But what if something goes wrong, what if they catch John? That won’t do them any good since they’re still pretending that John is dead.

And now Garrett is overthinking it. So much so that he doesn’t hear the Peggie coming up behind him until it’s too late.

“There’s a sinner in here!”

Garrett turns just in time to see the barrel of a gun being shoved into his face, hear the trigger being pulled, and then he’s standing in front of the no longer functioning Misery, John and Boomer next to him and the sun is high in the sky.

“What the fuck,” Garrett breathes out because he died, shouldn’t they have gone back to the very beginning?

He looks at John and sees the same confusion on his face before it mixes with anger.

“You died again,” John bites out and is that distress Garrett hears in his tone?

“Yeah, that one was kinda my fault,” Garrett admits. “But look on the bright side; at least we’re not back in the church.”

It does little to ease the frown from the other man’s face, but Garrett is actually hopeful. Maybe this means he’s actually doing something right if they’re not starting all the way back at the beginning. Definitely less stress on their end for once.

A bark of laughter escapes Garrett, tears of relief leaking from his eyes. No more of that god awful church, no more helicopter crash, or running for his life through the woods at night.

“Don’t have to fuckin’ hear _‘Cuff him, Rook’_ ever again, holy shit.”

\---

They call in Grace.

Well, Garrett calls in Grace.

When Grace shows up she takes one look at John and says, “I hope you know how to use a gun,” and goes off with Boomer following her to find a good perch.

Garrett and John wait, crouched in the shrubs with their pinkies loosely linked, until roughly 10 minutes have gone by. Clicking the safety off of their guns, they make their way into the hotel under the cover of the night.

\---

They mostly follow the same plan that Garrett had previously.

The first siren is shut off and they make their way quietly to the open kitchen, though this time John keeps an eye out while Garrett decides between using dynamite or a grenade for the last siren. Eventually, he decides on using a grenade, pulling the pin and holding down the lever, throws it out the open door and watches it land at the base of the siren.

He counts down in his head until it explodes, waits until he can hear the Peggies scrambling outside getting picked off by Grace and Boomer’s barks getting closer and closer, then he taps John’s shoulder and leads him outside to take care of the remaining cultists.

\---

The three of them clear the corpses of the cultists out of the hotel, drag them over close to the tree line. Ammo, guns, any kind of weapon are taken from the dead and stored in one of the bedrooms on the second floor. They move most of the Bliss barrels over by the dead Peggies, though a few of the barrels look like they had been opened, or were never sealed properly.

“I radioed the jail and they’ll send some people over in the morning. It’ll be easier to get rid of the Bliss and the corpses when they get here,” Garrett tells them, feeling tired and more than ready to sleep.

Grace nods in acknowledgement, grabs a room key from behind the desk, and heads upstairs.

One of John’s hands comes to rest on the back of Garrett’s neck and he leans into the touch, exhaustion weighing heavily on him now. His mind is feeling foggy, like one of those Bliss episodes where Faith comes to him.

“Wow, you’re really out of it,” John says, but his voice sounds far away, like Garrett is underwater. 

Garrett hums and tugs at John’s sleeve and heads up to room 301.

“You know, people say this place is haunted,” Garrett says going up the first flight of stairs. “Not surprising considering there’s been something like 12 deaths here.”

“Ghosts, huh?” John asks, sounding amused and Garrett grins like he’s halfway drunk. For all he knows, he might be; there were a lot of Bliss barrels that weren’t sealed properly outside. “You believe in that sort of thing?”

“Maybe, I dunno.” They make it up to the third floor and Garrett remembers he forgot to grab the room key. Oh well, he’ll just pick the lock. “It’s just something to think about. For a while, back when this whole thing with time shenanigans started I thought maybe I was dead and that I was a ghost reliving my death. Obviously that’s not the case, but still…”

“Something to think about,” John finishes for him. The door clicks open and Garrett grins up at him with a quiet _“ta-da.”_

Inside the room the both of them strip down for the night, though Garrett only gets as far as his shirt and shoes, his limbs doing that telltale tingling numbness that only happens with Bliss. His best bet is to sleep it off so he flops down onto the bed, burrows under the heavy comforter. The mattress dips when Boomer jumps onto it, curling up down at the foot of the bed, and dips again when John slides in next to him.

Garrett shifts around until he and John are face to face.

“What about you?” he finds himself asking. “You ever wonder if you’re actually a ghost since this whole thing started?”

“Not really, no. Thought I was in Hell, honestly.”

“Hmm. What would you do, if you were one? I’d probably haunt someone,” Garrett’s rambling now, and yeah the Bliss is really starting to hit now. About another minute of rambling before he’ll be out like a light. “Probably haunt you. Give you bad fashion advice on purpose and tell you you’ve got too much product in your hair.”

John huffs a laugh at him and presses in closer, runs a hand down Garrett’s back. “So what you do already, basically.”

“Mhm.” The Bliss in the barrels must be an experimental batch or something, because it’s already pulling Garrett under and usually it takes a lot more to do that.

“I’d haunt you too,” is the last thing Garrett hears before sleep and Bliss drag him under completely.

\---

He wakes in the Bliss, in Faith’s domain where she’s the only sober one.

“Don’t you understand what we’re trying to build?” Faith asks him and she looks upset, angry, as she pushes him away into her waiting hands. It shouldn’t make sense how that works, but this is the Bliss so it doesn’t have to make sense. “Or do you just not care?”

What kind of question is that? Of course Garrett cares, that’s why he’s doing this, trying to help people, trying to find a way to save the Seeds. He doesn’t want more blood on his hands.

Hell, he’s practically drowning in blood from all the people he’s killed over and over again.

“I watched you run this way and that, inflicting violence on those who wish no harm upon you.”

 _Okay, that right there is a bit of a lie,_ he wants to tell her. There’s been plenty of Peggies who open fire on him just because they happen to see him walking down the road. A smile suddenly breaks out on her face, washing away the angry and disappointed frown.

“They’re at peace here. They want to be here,” Faith tells him and pulls him along behind her as she runs through the tall grass.

 _Of course they want to be here,_ Garrett thinks, but is unable to say. _You’ve got them drugged to the point they can’t see or think straight. You’ve got them hooked on Bliss, they can’t imagine life without it. But it isn’t real._

“I know you have your doubts. But this is the only way the story ends.”

No, it isn’t. Garrett will make sure that this – all of it – will have a different end. He couldn’t bear it otherwise.

“Nothing you can do can change that.”

“I want to leave,” Garrett manages to say though it comes out slurred and jumbled, but clear enough for Faith to understand judging by the surprised look on her face. And it’s true, he does want to leave. The Bliss always leaves his head aching like someone’s trying to drive an icepick through his skull.

Faith shakes her head, the surprise being painted over by solemnity.

“Why must you always fight? Your friends on the outside? They’re controlled by fear, controlling _you_ with fear. They don’t understand.” She lets go of Garrett’s hand and his focus is stolen by a bright blue butterfly that flits past his face. “But he does. He’ll show you.”

And then there’s Burke, waiting for him in a rowboat, an easy grin on his face. “Hey, Rook.”

Burke holds out a hand to him and Garrett accepts it, lets himself be led onto the boat. He knows how this part goes.

Garrett’s only half listening to Burke talking, too busy looking at the scenery, trying to place where they are. Somewhere along a river since they’re in a boat, but he’s not able to place _where._

He never knew Burke all that well – doesn’t know him well – but Garrett’s familiar with the personality and he’s pretty sure that Burke, from what he knew of the guy, would loathe the man he is right now. Garrett watches as more and more of the odd, blue butterflies land on Burke.

A wave of pity washes over Garrett when he tunes back briefly to Burke’s Bliss drunk ramblings about success and the man’s disillusionment with life. It makes him wonder why so many people he’s met are so disappointed with what life offers; sure it isn’t perfect, but it isn’t entirely bad. Some of the good things in life are worth working for and they don’t require being a celebrity or the best at something.

“I’m sorry,” Garrett tells Burke, holds his gaze as he speaks. “I’m sorry if your life didn’t turn out the way you wanted it to be, but ignoring the world around you, losing yourself in Bliss isn’t the way to deal with it. Bliss won’t fix what’s wrong. The problems will still be there waiting for you.”

For a moment it looks like Garrett’s gotten through to Burke, but then the man’s face shutters, that infuriating Blissed-out look comes back.

“If that is real life, then what is the point?”

There is so much Garrett wants to say, but the words won’t come and then Burke starts talking again and it’s too much, Garrett can’t focus. The rowboat makes it to the other shore and Burke gets out and walks away. Garrett struggles to get out, to follow after him.

Suddenly, his vision goes white and the world tilts and he’s out of the Bliss, in an empty field with only the full moon to light up the world around him. Looking down he sees he’s barefoot and only wearing the jeans he went to sleep in, though they’re waterlogged to just below the knee. How long has he been wandering outside in a daze of Bliss?

There’s barking and people calling his name, but the clarity doesn’t last long and he’s back in the Bliss.

 _“Don’t trust the Bliss,”_ Whitehorse’s voice orders him. _“You need to get the Marshal.”_

Garrett propels himself forward on unsteady feet through the tall grass. He can see Burke up ahead, stumbling towards a wrought iron gate with peeling white paint.

_“Now’s the time, don’t let the Marshal get through those gates.”_

He tries to make himself go faster, but the mud is making it difficult, tugging at his feet, trying to make him stay.

_“Get the Marshal now—Rook, you need to save him!”_

The gate creaks open and there’s an alarm going off in the back of Garrett’s head. Somehow he ignores the mud that’s grabbing at him, wills himself to go faster, reaching out when Burke is within reach.

“Leave him alone,” Faith demands from somewhere he can’t see, but it comes out as more of a desperate plea. “Leave him alone!” It makes him feel bad to ignore the fear in her voice, but he does and Garrett grabs Burke.

\---

“You’re doing great.”

Garrett wakes to Tracey shining a bright light in his eyes and his hand clasped tightly in between someone else’s, Burke’s distressed shouts rising in volume rattle in Garrett’s skull.

 _“Christ._ Tracey, get that syringe over here!”

Then Tracey is gone and Garrett’s head lolls to his left and he watches the Sheriff hold Burke down and Tracey trying to inject the Marshal, but the man is resisting, lashing out at them. The pressure on his hand tightens and there’s the sound of a chair scraping back almost violently against the tile and then Burke is up out of his cot and Whitehorse is drawing his gun.

“You can’t come out of the Bliss clean.”

Burke is begging them, but Garrett can’t hear it clearly.

 _Don’t trust him,_ Garrett wants to tell them. _He’s been in the Bliss too long, he’ll kill Virgil and let the cultists in._

They don’t give Burke the injection, just let him collapse back onto his cot.

“You shouldn’t have brought him here,” Tracey says to the Sheriff.

Except that there’s nowhere else to really bring the Marshal, though they should at least have him restrained. Garrett really wishes that Bliss didn’t give him such a bad hangover because there’s a lot he wishes he could say right now but no one is going to listen to him at the moment or even be patient enough to try.

Ignoring the argument going on between Tracey and the Sheriff, Garrett looks to his right and sees John looking at him with an unamused expression and relief floods Garrett’s chest. He squeezes John’s hands that are wrapped around his and tries to convey what a bad idea it is to leave Burke as he is, but doesn’t know how good of a job he does.

John raises an eyebrow at him though he seems to get the gist of it.

“She’s mostly right, you know,” John says to Whitehorse, but keeps his eyes on Garrett’s face.

Tracey laughs, but it doesn’t sound like a good kind of laugh. “Can’t believe _Seed_ is the only one agreeing with me.”

“I said ‘mostly right,’ not ‘completely right.’ There is a difference.” John says, finally looking away from Garrett and Garrett wants to make an _‘Only Mostly Dead’_ joke, but seeing as his mouth isn’t working with his brain right now he’ll have to settle for laughing about it in his head. “Your Marshal has been on a lot of Bliss for a long time, you can’t trust him.”

Whitehorse sighs. “What do you propose we do then? Lock him up?”

“I don’t see why you can’t. We _are_ in a jail, after all. Plenty of empty cells.”

When the Sheriff doesn’t answer John sighs with frustration edging in. “Look, I’ve witnessed Bliss withdrawal. Even if it seems like he’s detoxed completely Faith will still have a hold on him. Don’t ask me how, but all I know is that it’s part of the conditioning she puts certain… _Chosen_ through.”

“It just doesn’t seem right…”

Garrett watches John’s gaze flick from the Sheriff to Burke, assessing the man’s state.

“He’ll be fine as he is for now, but if you won’t believe me or Tracey then you should ask Garrett when he sobers up. He’ll tell you the same thing.”

With the discussion over, the room eventually clears out and John’s eyes are back on him.

“Thanks,” Garrett murmurs when he can get his mouth to cooperate.

John pulls his chair back over and sits, still clutching Garrett’s hand as if he let go that Garrett might disappear. “Next time you go wandering off on a Bliss high, give me a heads-up beforehand.”

“Will do.”

And then Garrett is swept away by an undertow of sleep.

\---

In the morning, once Garrett is sober, he tells Sheriff Whitehorse that he agrees with Tracey and John, that Burke should be placed in a cell until he can deal with Faith.

Burke gets placed in a cell a couple of hours later. The man is too out of it to really notice, and Garrett does feel bad for this, but he can’t run the risk of Faith manipulating the Marshal into killing Virgil and letting the cultists overrun the jail.

With any luck Burke won’t have to be in there for very long.


	10. and now i found brimstone in my garden

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> lmao, sorry for the wait, i had to rewrite this chapter at least three times. i really wanted to start this off with garrett and john going to the angels grave, but it just wasn't working out.

The comedown from Bliss always gives him strange dreams, even after all this time.

Garrett wakes with lungs full of smoke, smoke that falls from his mouth whenever he opens it, burning from the inside out.

Faith – no, Rachel Jessop – stands before him as he remembers her. He never knew her well, Rachel being four years younger than him, but he remembers her. Just some kid he’d see around Falls End every now and then, usually with a large group of friends, Tracey among the number.

Rachel Jessop stands before him, the emotionally dead look in her eyes masked by a practiced smile.

“You destroy everything you touch, just like your father.”

She grows taller, older, and goes from Rachel Jessop to Faith Seed and there’s strain around her smile, Bliss flowers blooming in her eyes.

“Hell follows your every step. You embody it, it is who you are.”

The flames within him grow larger, trying to crawl their way out of his throat, making him gasp and choke. Garrett can feel the heat of the fire against the back of his eyes.

Then Faith Seed turns bloody and bruised from before the loops started, the way she looked before she let the river take her. More and more Bliss flowers grow from her eyes until they’re overflowing and falling free like some kind of fucked up replacement for tears.

“How do you know the result won’t be exactly the same as the first time?”

His skin cracks and pops from the heat of the flames and when he looks – really looks – Faith Seed is made up of nothing but Bliss flowers… She’s just Bliss flowers formed in a vaguely human shape, not actually real.

“How can you save anyone,” she says quietly, calm and full of sorrow like wind through grass, “When you can’t even save yourself?”

Garrett goes up in flames just as Faith does and they burn, a blazing inferno engulfing everything in its path. Closing his eyes, he can hear a baby wailing in the distance, but that doesn’t make any sense…

 

And then he jolts awake in the backseat of a jeep, Grace sitting up front with Whitehorse driving, John asleep next to Garrett and Boomer sprawled across their laps. A quick look out the window shows that they’re heading back towards the hotel which Garrett thinks is just fucking fantastic because walking around shirtless and without shoes gets old pretty quick.

They’re still a ways away from the hotel so Garrett tries to go back to sleep.

\---

“Why is this even here?”

“Hey, where’s your Halloween spirit?”

“It’s not even October yet.”

“True, but if people can start getting into Christmas as soon as November hits, I don’t see why Halloween can’t start early too.”

“Because it’s August, Garrett,” John says as they walk up the dirt driveway towards O’Hara’s Haunted House. “Why are we here?”

“Asking the big question, huh? Didn’t expect to get philosophical at haunted house in August in the middle of the night, but I can roll with it.”

Garrett laughs when John rolls his eyes and points to the note by the locked door on the barn turned holiday attraction. “There’s a stash in there; that’s why we’re here.”

John grabs the note and reads it, brow furrowed as he follows Garrett over to the scaffolding up against the house.

“This O’Hara sounds like a psychopath.”

“Takes one to know one, right?”

“Considering the company you keep you must be one too.”

“Oh definitely,” Garrett grins at John before he starts climbing up, his goal the open window to the attic.

“So where is O’Hara? Can’t imagine he’d just up and leave, especially since he lives all the way out here all by himself, no neighbors for at least two miles…” John grimaces, climbing up after Garrett. “That sounds like the start to a bad horror movie.”

Garrett shrugs, picking up a Zombie comic up off of the mattress on the floor. 

“Dunno. Don’t even know the guy’s first name. No one really knows anything about the guy other than the fact that he opens up his haunted house every October.” Garrett frowns, because now that he thinks about it… “Now that I think about it, I don’t think I’ve ever actually seen him.”

That’s not weird or creepy, right? Never having met the guy who runs the haunted house and lives all the way out in the middle of nowhere, by himself with only his pet goat around, is totally normal and nothing to be worried about.

Absolutely… not. Now Garrett’s creeped out about a place that he had, up until now, thought was normal, but now when he looks back on all the little things over the years… Ugh, he just wants to get the free stuff and leave.

“I’m never gonna be able to look at this place and not get creeped out,” Garrett complains as he heads over to the power switch, John right behind him. “You’ve ruined Halloween for me.”

“Isn’t that kind of the point of haunted houses? To be creeped out?”

“No. They’re supposed to be tacky and fun,” Garrett informs him trying to be angry, but failing when John rests his hands on Garrett’s hips and presses against him.

“I’m sorry for ruining Halloween for you.” There’s a smile in his voice and Garrett knows he’s just being a little shit.

“No you’re not, you liar.”

“Well, I am the patron saint of liars and fakes,” John quips as he reaches one hand out to flip the switch.

“You’re a lawyer.”

“Exactly.”

Garrett snorts. “That’s not—what the hell?”

As the lights to the haunted house flickered on, Garrett’s eyes catch on something moving in the window at the top of the barn. It… looks like a person, but he can’t quite make out the face. 

“Do you see that?” he asks, pointing out the figure as it moves around some more before turning and disappearing from view.

John nods and then they’re both moving towards the way they came in, apparently having decided to go check it out without even having to talk about it. A chill runs up Garrett’s spine because he doesn’t remember noticing the guy in the window any of the previous times he came here for the stash, but that doesn’t mean that guy wasn’t there those times.

Yeah, there’s absolutely no way Garrett’s ever coming back here again after tonight.

They make it all the way to the end, climb up into upper part of the barn and the guy is long gone. It really puts the open hatch in the back into a new light. Puts everything up here in a whole new light really and Garrett… Garrett just really doesn’t want to think about it.

\---

John doesn’t always sleep well, Garrett’s come to notice.

Bad dreams – bad memories – that seem to haunt him just like they haunt everyone else in Hope County. He doesn’t thrash in his sleep or scream himself awake. It’s always a quiet thing, silent as the grave, the only thing giving him away is when he grips at Garrett too tightly, digs his fingers in too roughly.

Garrett’s usually already awake when these dreams come to plague John, his insomnia worse now thanks to the hundreds upon hundreds of loops he’s been through. Instead of waking John, Garrett talks him through it, voice low and soft but still somehow incredibly loud in whatever abandoned home they’re sleeping in for the night.

“Do not stand at my grave and weep; I am not there. I do not sleep,” Garrett recites, barely audible over the thunder and the rain beating against the window. “I am a thousand winds that blow. I am the diamond glint on snow. I am the sun on ripened grain. I am the gentle Autumn rain.”

Poetry had never been something that interested him much growing up, mostly because of the way it was taught in high school. Bored him to death when he was younger, but now he finds some peace in it.

“When you awake in the morning hush, I am the swift, uplifting rush of quiet birds in circling flight. I am the soft starlight at night.” He presses a kiss to the now steady pulse in John’s neck and watches the rain. “Do not stand at my grave and cry; I am not there. I did not die.”

\---

The Angels are probably the ones Garrett feels the most guilty about, practically lobotomized with Bliss. The ones he finds wandering through the woods makes him wonder how they’ve managed to survive, but then he’ll see their emaciated forms, the blood on their hands and around their mouths, either dried or fresh, and then he’ll wonder what – or who – they’ve eaten.

They don’t attack him as much anymore; tend to just blindly follow him, probably sensing the Bliss that is surely soaked into his veins at this point, milky white eyes staring off into nothing but always catch on him.

“Make you think of the Lotus-eaters but more violent, don’t they?” Lindsey comments once when Garrett brings him a couple of Angels that had followed him for lack of anywhere else to take them. They follow him willingly into one of the empty cells, docile and content so long as he’s nearby to placate them.

The jail isn’t his first choice to bring the Angels, but it’s better than the alternative.

Better than tossing them down into the Angel’s Grave to either rot on a rocky ledge or drown in the toxic waters.

Garrett hates that place, more than the Misery; the number of corpses dropped in there always turns his stomach.

Sometimes he dreams of that place, that all the Bliss that’s been forced on him will turn his eyes milky white and then he’ll be down in that Grave too.

\---

They burn the Bliss fields at Jessop Conservatory. 

_You destroy everything you touch_ echoes in his mind.

He helps the resistance members dispose of the remaining Bliss and the drug labs strewn throughout the property until the sun starts to set; then he goes looking for John. Garrett finds him up in the attic that had once been a bedroom.

“She used to tell me about her life, before she became Faith,” John says quietly, tracing along words carved into the windowsill. “The abuse she suffered, the drugs she took just to feel something, anything.”

Garrett remains silent, letting John talk as he pleases. Their shoulders brush as they breathe, the bright setting sun washing them in an orange light.

“She wasn’t the first Faith, you know, but she’s the most dedicated… And afraid of Joseph.”

“Like you?” Garrett asks. He already knows John is, seen the way he interacts with his older brother, the way he avoided any kind of confrontation with him.

“Yeah, I guess I am,” John admits almost regretfully. “Joseph, he wasn’t always like this. Or maybe he was and I’m just not remembering right.”

 _I’ve found hope –Rachel, 2009_ is carved on the windowsill when Garrett looks down at it. He wonders if she still holds that sentiment.

\---

A curse escapes Garrett as he ducks out of the way of falling cement.

“Sorry about that, sweetheart!” Adelaide apologizes over the radio as she continues to shoot at Joseph’s statue. He waves it off, heads into the base of the statue with John and Boomer; time to burn the book of Joseph’s that Faith keeps here.

“Stay here, it’ll be easier if I go up alone.” Not to mention all the wrecked containers leaking Bliss. Things will get tricky if they’re both high as a kite. John doesn’t seem happy about it, but doesn’t argue.

The climb isn’t too bad until he runs out of ladders; trying to balance on a steel girder is hard enough sober, but trying to do it while on a Bliss high? Garrett’s surprised that they don’t end up back at the destroyed Misery.

There’s less and less Peggies the higher up he gets, but his balance gets worse and worse as well. Still, he makes it to the top and burns the book, though how he gets back down is a little fuzzy to him, the Bliss hitting him hard.

The last thing he remembers before ending up in the Bliss again is seeing John and Boomer waiting for him as he slides down the last ladder.

\---

He’s staring into a foggy forest when he falls into the Bliss, a blue butterfly flitting past his face.

“I don’t understand… Did you think you could just continue to do what you wanted without any consequences?” Then Faith comes into view, anger and disappointment marring her face. “I’ve been reasonable. I’ve been fair. But you are just so… _selfish.”_

She shoves him and he slides backwards through the grass. You’d think he’d be used to it by now, but Garrett’s always blindsided by her strength in this dream world.

“You forced someone to leave that didn’t want to go,” she bites out as she grabs him by the shoulder, turning him around to face her. “All so that you could be what? A hero?”

“Did he even want to be here in the first place?” Garrett asks and watches the fury unfold in her expression. “How does being drugged out of your mind like that fix anything? Do you think the Angels are happy? Do you think, given the choice, that they’d willingly _choose_ to be the way they are now?”

Faith bares her teeth at him, grabs him by the front of his shirt and drags him through the tall grass. He wraps a hand around her wrist and holds on, but keeps his grip loose.

“If I destroy everything I touch then so do you.”

There’s a smile on her face, but it isn’t a nice one; it’s vicious, wrathful.

“Do you know what hubris is?” She asks him with a sickly sweet tone. “Arrogance before the gods. The Greeks saw it as a dangerous form of pride that invoked the goddess Nemesis, who would seek retribution.”

They’re in the office Minkler has been using at the jail, a lead weight in Garrett’s stomach.

_No no no no_

Burke is in a cell, she can’t use him to kill Virgil because his cell is _locked_ and he’d been stripped of anything he could use as a weapon or to get out of there.

They’re in Virgil’s office, but Burke is nowhere to be seen. Instead, it’s a resistance member that Garrett has never seen before sitting at the desk playing poker with Virgil, talking about something Garrett can’t quite focus on. Faith trails a hand along the person’s shoulder as she moves.

“If violence is the only language you choose to speak… then I will speak your language.”

He can’t move, suddenly rooted to the ground but his heart feels like it’s running a mile a second.

“And when their blood is on your hands…” Faith directs the person’s movements, encourages them to draw their gun and aim it at Virgil’s heart. “We’ll see how heroic you feel.”

_“What are you doing?”_

At the sound of gunfire Garrett regains his ability to move, rushes to Virgil’s side even though he knows there’s nothing he can do for him while he’s in the Bliss.

“I’m sorry to have to do this. I wanted there to be another way.”

The gun is aimed at his heart now, but then Faith gently pushes the person away, towards the jail’s radio and controls.

“But you made your choice,” Faith hisses as she steps closer, into Garrett’s space.

There’s more gunfire, screams in the distance, and then everything blanks out into nothingness.

\---

The crackle of the radio, of Whitehorse’s distress, wakes Garrett up and he finds himself in front of a Bliss field across the road from the jail.

He doesn’t get the chance to answer due to Boomer barreling into him.

“I thought I told you to tell me the next time you were going to run off on some Bliss high,” he hears John say, helping Garrett get to his feet.

“Yeah, I did and I’m sorry,” Garrett says around a borderline hysterical laugh, pulling John forward into a brief kiss. “But we got bigger things to worry about first.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> [poem used was Do Not Stand At My Grave And Weep by Mary Elizabeth Frye](http://holyjoe.org/poetry/frye.htm)
> 
>  
> 
> [the dude in the barn at the haunted house is actually a thing](http://www.ign.com/videos/2018/03/28/far-cry-5-oharas-haunted-house-prepper-stash) if you look closely at about 1:08 and i never noticed when i played so now i'm creeped tf out about it


	11. two out of three ain't bad

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> thank you guys for reading and leaving comments!
> 
> i don't always answer them but i do read and appreciate them
> 
> also there's the return of concussed garrett lmao

They sneak in through the destroyed gate, keeping low and as close to the walls as possible. There are Angels roaming the yard but they ignore the three of them as they circle around to get up onto the roof to the vent. The entire time Garrett hears Faith talking to him, or thinks he does because he’s pretty sure John isn’t hearing her taunts; it’s not surprising, but he’s probably still incredibly high off of Bliss still which is going to make things interesting.

When they finally get to the spot to climb up Garrett notices a big problem, looks down at Boomer.

“Fuck, how are we gonna get Boomer in?”

“I don’t think we can,” John tells him. “He’s just going to have to wait out here.”

John’s right; Garrett knows he is because it would be really difficult to get Boomer through the vents without the dog panicking, but he doesn’t like the idea of leaving him out here by himself.

Not a lot of choice though and not a lot of time either.

“Go hide, boy.” Boomer whines but runs off into the bushes and Garrett and John start climbing the building, taking turns being on lookout for the patrolling Peggies on the outer wall.

\---

The vent exits out onto the highest catwalk in the main cellblock, the metallic stench of blood almost overpowering. There’s only one Peggie this high up making it easy for Garrett to sneak up and put him into a sleeper hold without anyone noticing.

He’s trying to go for nonlethal here, keep the body count as low as possible.

Garrett gets the jump on the next guard on the level below them and the guy is out like a light. He keeps watch while John lowers himself down and then takes point, Garrett following behind him. The door to Burke’s cell is open and Garrett’s stomach sinks when he catches sight of the man lying dead on the floor.

Was it all for nothing? Were Burke and Virgil doomed to die no matter what he did? Did that mean Eli is going to die anyway when Garrett goes up against Jacob?

Emotion rising up Garrett’s throat, he doesn’t notice the cultist coming up behind him until he takes a hit to the head with a blunt object that knocks him over onto the concrete floor.

“We got the Deputy up here!”

 _God damn Bliss,_ Garrett curses to himself. It was a solid blow and it’s just like that time back in the graveyard except he doesn’t pass out. Got hit hard enough that his ears are ringing and he’s going to be so _pissed_ if he’s got another concussion. 

Stupid Bliss making him hazy and messing with his sense of… everything, really.

There’s a commotion, and then screaming that’s really nearby and not him and before he knows it John comes into view, blood spattered all over his face and his hands are covered in it too as he hoists Garrett upright. There’s a violent lurch in his stomach at the change in perspective, but he manages to keep himself from vomiting.

Garrett: 1, concussion: 0.

Well, until he gets a good look at the mangled Peggie only a few feet away and Garrett retches.

John’s shoving a gun into his hand and Garrett finally notices the gunshots being aimed at them. So much for nonlethal.

“Did you just kill that guy with your bare hands?” Garrett finds himself asking while trying to line up a shot. _Oh god, this is just like the mortars again but so much worse._

“Yes,” John answers bluntly, leans around the sheet metal they’ve been using for cover and fires an entire clip before falling back to reload. “But now isn’t the time to discuss it.”

Conceding the point, Garrett goes back to trying to line up a shot.

\---

 _“You’re trying so hard. It’s sad… knowing it’s all for nothing,”_ Faith tells him though the Bliss with a faux sympathetic tone of voice when he unlocks the gate to untie Tracey.

No, not for nothing. He’ll be damned if nothing comes from all of this.

They follow Tracey into Virgil’s office where Virgil lays dead in a pool of congealing blood. She desperately tries to put pressure on the wound, but he bled out a long time ago.

Garrett’s eyes catch on the person who shot Virgil, their corpse long since cold as well, the pistol they used gripped tight. It gives Garrett some idea of just how long he as in the Bliss if rigor mortis has already started to set in.

The gun catches his eye again… he could go back, undo all of this, maybe figure out a way so that Virgil and Burke survive this. It’d be a long way back but completely worth it if he can change fate.

John takes hold of Garrett by the jaw, forces him to look at him, anger simmering just beneath the surface, ready to bubble over at any minute. “No.”

“It wouldn’t be so bad,” Garrett says, trying to convince him. “Just back to the Misery and we can stop this from happening.”

A huff of laughter escapes John but it doesn’t sound happy.

“You honestly think I’m going to let you kill yourself?”

“Is it really dying if I don’t actually stay that way?”

“You don’t _know_ that though. We don’t know how this works at all.” John sounds distressed and incredibly angry and like he thinks Garrett’s an idiot and yeah, he probably is. Especially when he’s more than likely concussed. Again. “What if this is the last repeat we get? The last chance? You really want to risk that all these repeats might not be limitless?”

That… that honestly never crossed Garrett’s mind, that there might be limits to the time loops. Because John does have a point: they really don’t have a fucking clue to how these work, what the rules are other than that Garrett has to try to fix whatever it is the universe has deemed to have gone horribly wrong.

He doesn’t know what to do, gaze flickering between John’s face and the pistol on the floor.

Tracey makes the decision for him, grabbing him by the collar of his shirt and turning him to face her.

“Find her. Kill her. Don’t let her get away with this.”

Then she’s shoving Garrett towards the door and he can hear singing in the distance and follows it, ignores the short argument between John and Tracey. Follows it out the lobby door where all the Angels that had been released from their cells wait for him and follow him into the Bliss.

He doesn’t wait for John or Boomer, knows that they’ll find him eventually.

_“When this is over we will all be together in the Bliss.”_

\---

Garrett wakes in the Bliss outside of a wrought iron gate that swings open, the Angels shambling along behind him. The world spins and tilts like a carnival ride and Garrett struggles to walk right. Bliss and concussions are proving to be a bad combination.

“Now you see what we can do. Come to me and I’ll show you a world you never dreamed possible.”

He follows the path of flowers down to a clearing, birdsong in his ear as blue butterflies flit past him and there’s the Sheriff walking hand in hand with Faith, both singing _Amazing Grace_ like nothing’s wrong, picking Bliss flowers in a daze.

Garrett reaches out to the Sheriff when he walks by but Faith stops him with a painfully tight grip on his arm.

“Your Sheriff kept you from walking the path. But now he understands its purpose,” Faith tells him with a smile. “And he’ll join our family in Eden.”

Garrett looks over at Whitehorse wandering away before Faith steps in front of him again.

“And if you try to stop him…” Faith threatens softly. Then she laughs and disappears in a cloud of Bliss.

When Garrett looks up, Whitehorse is gone as well and all that’s left is the rock in the middle of the clearing.

“Your Sheriff was a wall… A wall between you and the Father…”

Standing before the rock, Faith reappears floating above it, looking down at him with pity and anger.

“A wall that kept you from seeing his Truth…” Then her hand reaches back and flings something at him and it _burns._ “So I will knock down that wall.”

Backing away from her, Garrett is at a loss, doesn’t know what to do except to dodge her attacks and maybe put up a false fight like he did with John. 

“Your Sheriff is so close now… so close to accepting the Word of the Father into his heart. And when he does, there’s no coming back from that.”

He takes a couple of shots at her, most of them missing, when aggressive Angels start showing up, but then the Angels that followed him here start going after them and it’s all just one big chaotic mess.

Then there’s multiples of her and it’s like some boss battle from a damn video game and it makes his head hurt hearing her voice echoing like that.

“Why do you keep fighting us? You know what’s coming.”

Three big explosions and the world on fire, being trapped in a bunker with only Dutch’s corpse and Joseph, caving in his own skull against the bedframe while the world outside dies.

“The Father showed you. The world is crashing to an end! It is diseased and corrupt. The Father is offering you a chance to let go… to stop worrying… to be free…”

When he looks around there are more of the Angels who follow him standing than Faith’s and they wait patiently for more to show up. They make no move towards Faith and he didn’t think they would. Besides, this is his fight anyway. Taking aim, he shoots and the bullet clips her shoulder.

“You strike but you cannot destroy what He created.”

“Doesn’t matter if he’s right or wrong about that,” Garrett manages to say, finally regaining the ability to talk. “What matters is that what he’s doing, how he’s doing it, is wrong. I don’t care if he really does talk to God or not, this is still really messed up. He’s ruined people’s lives. The ends don’t justify the means.”

“You cannot cross the Father!”

Garrett wonders if she’s talking about him or herself when she says that.

“Look at yourself, Rachel.”

“… Don’t call me that.”

Garrett lowers his gun.

“Look at what he’s done to you, to everyone in the County. Look at what _you’ve_ done _for_ him.”

“It’s not my fault… _None_ of this was my fault! You think I wanted this? He plied me with drugs… He _threatened_ me. I was seventeen; I was just a child!” Her voice echoes in the clearing but she’s nowhere to be seen.

“Rachel—”

“No!”

The world tilts and the Bliss is gone and they’re on a riverbank. Rachel in front of him, bloody and bruised but there aren’t any bullet wounds, only grazes.

“You still don’t understand. You don’t know what it is you’re doing do you?” She steps forward and he remains where he is. “Joseph believes he’s our savior. But you’ll be the one who decides what happens. You were the start. You’ll be the end.”

She steps forward again, reaching out to him and Garrett doesn’t step away this time, fixing the mistake he had made the first time. He opens his arms and lets her collapse against him, her shaking legs no longer able to hold her weight.

There’s still sparkles in his eyes, the Bliss still heavily affecting him, but he does his best to get an arm under her legs and carries her away from the river, the Angels following him still.

Rachel sobs openly and he does his best to calm her while they wait. John will show up eventually, he always does when Garrett has gone off on a Bliss induced adventure.

“You’ll choose…” Rachel hiccups, burying her face against his shoulder. “You’ll choose.”

They make it up to the side of a road and Garrett has to lean against the traffic barrier, his own legs growing weak. He gets out his radio and calls Grace.

“I know it’s really late to be asking this, but I need you and Hurk and Sharky to get to the county jail and wait for John to show up and keep Tracey from killing Rachel until I get back.”

There’s a crackling sigh, but an affirmative and the radio clicks off.

“John’s alive?”

“Mhm,” Garrett hums as he keeps an eye out for headlights or for movement in the tree line on the other side of the road. “He’s alive.”

“But Joseph… Joseph said you killed him.”

“Maybe Joseph isn’t always right.”

“… He’ll kill me when he finds out. Kill me and replace me like he did with the others before me,” Rachel murmurs.

“Nah, we won’t let him.”

They lapse into silence and Garrett remembers his phone and pulls it out of his pocket and calls John.

“Where are you? I’ve been driving around for an hour trying to find you!”

“Uh…” Garrett looks around for any kind of landmark to figure out where they are. “Up the road from the conservatory, I think. Near the brewery?”

“Stay there. _Don’t. Move.”_

And then they wait.

Not too long after the phone call a set of headlights comes around the bend in the road and there’s John taking Rachel out of Garrett’s arms and settling her into the passenger seat. Garrett can’t hear what they’re saying but that’s okay because the Bliss is kicking in again and he’ll be gone soon.

Garrett hadn’t realized he closed his eyes until he opens them at John’s touch, turning Garrett’s head this way and that, taking in the cuts on his face.

“Couldn’t have waited two seconds for me before you went running off again?” John asks but he sounds upset so it doesn’t really sound like a question. Garrett leans into him, rests his forehead on John’s collarbone.

“’m sorry,” he slurs. There’s a buzz in his mind like someone filled his skull with bees and it throbs painfully in time with his heartbeat. Pushing himself away when John tries to lead him to the car, Garrett’s legs almost give out underneath him. “No, you and Rachel need to go to the jail. Grace and the others will be there.”

John’s jaw clenches and there’s that frustration again. “And what about you?”

“Gotta go get the Sheriff.” 

He reaches out, links their pinkies together briefly but it does little to ease the knot in John’s brow, and then Garrett’s falling into the Bliss again and he leads the remaining Angels to Faith’s Gate.

\---

There’s nature strewn throughout Faith’s Gate, Bliss fog rolling out like waves, and he and the Angels get in too easy. It should be harder to get into an Eden’s Gate bunker, even if in the Bliss, but it’s like hiking through the forests but with more hallucinations.

More Angels join them, milky white eyes looking at Garrett with something like adoration; he wonders if they mistake him for Faith, for Rachel, because of all the Bliss he’s endured.

He isn’t sure he wants to know.

The Sheriff is in a cell singing _Amazing Grace_ and before all of this Garrett never would have found it as irritating as he does now. Can’t listen to it without feeling sick just like _Only You_ and he’s already dreading having to deal with that.

“I don’t have much time, Rook,” Whitehorse tells him and Garrett can see the filmy glaze slowly spreading in the Sheriff’s eyes. “The Bliss… you have to stop it; you have to hurry.”

The Sheriff struggles to stay lucid and fails, reciting _Amazing Grace_ once more and staring at the noose hanging ominously in the sunlight.

Not waiting for the Sheriff, Garrett heads up the stairs to the Bliss productions rooms with the Angels following his every step, follows the voice of Not Tracey until grass and dirt gives way to metal.

And then Peggies start shooting at him and the Angels fucking lose it, launching headfirst into a wild bloodlust and tear into the cultists. Stunned by their ferocity Garrett has to shake his head clear and sets about shutting off the valves and trying to ignore the screams.

This time goes a lot smoother than he remembers the first time going. Probably because the Peggies are more focused on the now wild Angels than they are on him. There’s explosions and tremors from the back up building in the machines, enough to make Garrett lose his footing and hit his head on a set of pipes so hard that if Garrett wasn’t sure he had a concussion before then he sure does now.

Things get fuzzy after Whitehorse radios him, doesn’t remember much except for fire and Angels mostly clearing the way of Peggies for him. He knows Whitehorse had called him over the radio again, something about survivors and outside but he’d been more focused on trying to walk straight, the Bliss and recent head trauma making his vision go weird like a fun-house mirror.

And then he’s outside with the last three surviving Angels of the horde that had helped him.

\---

Whitehorse drives them back to the county jail in a commandeered jeep, the early morning making it feel like it’s been years since they’ve been back.

He’s not embarrassed to admit that he perks up when he catches sight of John by the gate and doesn’t bother to stifle the laugh that bubbles up at the return of the baffled look on the man’s face as Hurk and Sharky are talking to him again. Rachel’s perched atop a burned up car with Grace with Boomer trying to curl up in her lap; she looks better, less beat up and covered in blood.

“You both look like hell,” Tracey says and whoa, when did she come over?

“Feel like it to,” Whitehorse replies, shutting off the engine.

Tracey turns her attention to Garrett and she looks simultaneously impressed and pissed off. It’s an odd combination to say the least.

“You saved a lot of people here today, Rook. Including _her.”_ Ah yes, that’s why. He’d almost completely forgotten that Tracey had been fully expecting him to kill Rachel. “Don’t forget that.”

She says the last part like it’s supposed to be a warning, and Garrett knows it’s a risk; Rachel is terrified of Joseph Seed, spent years trying to survive like that and yeah, okay, she’s done a lot of bad, terrible, messed up things and nothing can excuse that, but outright murdering Rachel always seemed pretty god damn extreme. 

Tracey gets called away to help with one of the injured and Garrett starts trying to get the Angels out of the car and back into their cells under Lindsey’s care.

“Y’know, there was a moment, just before you arrived…” Whitehorse starts, helping Garrett with the Angels. “I’d just lost all hope. I couldn’t see a way out. But you led the way.”

The Sheriff pauses, looks around the jail’s parking lot at the resistance members going about their business making repairs and helping the injured. 

“And a lot of good people died, but everyone here, all of us, we’re alive because of you. And I’m damn proud of you.” He rests a hand on Garrett’s shoulder, gives it a squeeze and it reminds him so damn much of William that he thinks he might start crying.

Garrett blames it on the concussion.

The Sheriff puts his hat back on as they head to the gate, to the group waiting for Garrett.

“Now I want you to find that goddamned Joseph Seed. Bring him to justice, or put him in the ground. That’s an order, Deputy.”

\---

They take the same route back into Holland Valley that they left by, this time John is driving and Rachel Jessop is passed out in the backseat with Boomer and Garrett is fiddling with his car’s radio.

For once 97.9 comes in clearly, playing music from the late 90’s and early 00’s.

Despite finally getting better reception the station still is in the habit of playing music that was popular two decades ago. It’s not necessarily bad, just that it’d be nice to listen to something more recent sometimes.

Watching the scenery go by in a blur almost makes him miss John singing along to [the song playing](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LwkrXybZ1uo) on the radio under his breath.

“Are—Are you singing along to the _Backstreet Boys?”_

John glances at him briefly before focusing back on the road. 

“… No.”

"Holy shit you were! You definitely were," Garrett crows, grinning wide at John.

And then he clams right up and aw, no, Garrett didn’t want him to stop, it was just… surprising? Honestly, it never crossed Garrett’s mind that John listened to anything that wasn’t like, Gospel or Christian Rock or something. Also why is it that all of the Seeds are good at singing? Hell, if they wanted to have a cult following they should've gone into music. Would've been easier to gain followers that way and less attention from the authorities.

“Nah, c’mon, you were doing really good,” Garrett insists, but John looks steadfastly ahead of him. 

“Tell me why,” Garrett prompts.

No response so he repeats himself in time with the song that’s still playing on the radio.

“Ain’t nothin’ but a mistake.”

Grin growing wider, Garrett leans back in his seat and keeps singing.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> look, john grew up during the 90's, u can't tell me he's not a fan of the backstreet boys okay. also idk if y'all realize how long i've been waiting to put that into this fic.... since about chapter 4 i think and i absolutely would have included it sooner but i just couldn't find a place to make it work until now.
> 
> also [this clip](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ffyKY3Dj5ZE) kind of inspired it tbh and i wanted something a lil happy before we go into the final region lmao (i'm thinking of doing a john chapter after this and another one when jacob's region is finished but we'll see)


	12. for a moment i forget to worry

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> sorry for the wait on this chapter y'all. not a lot of rachel(faith) in this chapter, but there should be in the next chapter and the john chapter after jacob's region is finished if things go the way i've planned (and i use the word "plan" very loosely. it's more like a vague, general idea tbh)

John finds Garrett sitting out on the porch steps.

“Two to go,” Garrett says when he sits down next to him, leans into John’s side and it soothes something jagged within John. 

“Yeah,” John agrees idly, leaning into Garrett as well.

They sit there and watch the sun dip lower and lower in the sky, staining everything yellow and orange. This is the most at peace John has felt in a long time. Calm; just completely at ease in his own skin, which, to be quite frank, is a first.

“How’s Rachel doing?”

It takes a moment for the question to register in his mind; he’s too used to calling her Faith. John remembers Joseph picking her out from the most devoted of the faithful, telling him and Jacob that she was going to be the next Faith after the last one – Selena or Lana, he could never keep them straight, always changing too quickly for him to really know them well or actually care – failed spectacularly.

“Stress sleeping,” John informs Garrett.

Garrett hums.

“Not surprising. It’s been a stressful day. Days?”

“Days,” John decides.

He remembers what had changed his attitude about Faith and it was because of Rachel; remembers meeting her, a rail thin 17 year old with needle marks in the crook of her elbow, the exhausted and haunted look that lurked behind her eyes. Her ability to hide and mask her true emotions hadn’t been perfected then and she reminded John so much of himself at that age.

It was also the one thing he never could forgive Joseph for either; John never confronted him about it, not brave enough for that so he convinced himself it was his own sin and that Joseph was just doing what needed to be done.

Once Rachel had stepped into the role of Faith, she told him about how it happened, how Joseph had drugged her to the point where she couldn’t think straight and had threatened and intimidated her into submitting. His older brother had broken her and it reminded him too much of his parents and of the Duncans.

He remembers being so livid – so _Wrathful_ – but unable to do anything about it except let her cry on his shoulder; John had been just as scared of Joseph as her. He still is. Doesn’t understand how Garrett can look at Joseph and not feel the same terror as them.

The comfortable silence lasts until the sun has set completely and the stars have come out, Garrett’s radio crackling to life as someone calls him. Irritation rises within him because they apparently can’t have at least half a day of rest.

“Um… this is Kim Rye calling out to Nick and the Deputy. When you get a chance, can you please swing by the house? Please? No emergency or anything… uh… yet…”

“Oh fuck,” Garrett hisses, lurches upright so fast that John tilts sideways and barely catches himself from falling. “Shit—sorry, but I gotta go.”

John rolls his eyes as he stands up. “Where are we going?”

“Kim’s having her baby and they’re going to need me to drive. You should stay here with Rachel,” Garrett tells him as he starts looking around for his car keys.

“Rachel will be fine. Boomer hasn’t left her side the entire time and she’s having a stress nap; she’ll be out for a while.” _She’s going to want some space when she wakes up anyway_ he doesn’t say.

John takes the car keys out of his pocket and holds them up, smirk on his face when Garrett narrows his eyes at him.

“… I hate you.”

“No you don’t,” John says as he heads to the car.

“You’re right; I don’t.”

\---

“Who the _hell_ taught you how to drive?”

“Oh my god, did you just _swear?_ Someone pinch me, I think I’m having a fever dream because John Seed just— _Ouch!_ That was _sarcasm,_ John.”

“Guys! Not. The time,” Kim grits out from the backseat as Nick lets out a strangled hiss of pain from how tight she’s gripping his hand in hers.

\---

They’re laid out in the truck bed while the Ryes are inside the clinic having a baby.

“Is there always a crashing plane when this happens?” John asks while Garrett plays with his left hand, turning it this way and that looking at the various tattoos that decorate John’s skin.

“Probably. I mean, I’ve only done this once before and it happened that time to, so it might be inevitable.” Garrett holds up John’s left hand, showing the back of it. “The seven deadly sins. In Latin. That’s kind of cliché, buddy.”

“Says the guy who drives like he thinks he’s one of the Duke boys.”

Garrett snorts.

“Please, if anyone thinks they’re just like the Dukes of Hazzard it’d be Sharky and Hurk.”

He watches Garrett turn his arm, showing the underside of his forearm, shivers at the soft touch of Garrett’s thumb rubbing his skin.

“Which was your first tattoo?”

John points to the nautical star and diamonds on the back of his right hand. 

“This one. Got it during my freshman year of university.”

“Any reason why or was it just because?”

“A little bit of column A, little bit of column B,” John tells him, turning his head so that they’re looking at each other, his eye catching on his earring that Garrett still wears and John remembers something Garrett had said when he’d taken it. “Did you really use to have frosted tips?”

With a groan, Garrett hides his face against John’s shoulder. “I was hoping you wouldn’t have remembered that. Just please don’t mention it to Mary May; she’ll bring out the photos.”

John raises an eyebrow at him. “You do realize that she hates me, right?”

“She hates you, but she loves to embarrass me more.”

“I’ll keep that in mind then.”

Garrett glares at him but it doesn’t shake the grin from John’s face.

\---

Rachel has mostly kept to herself, hidden away behind the closed guest room door, only opening it to let Boomer out before shutting it again. John can tell it’s worrying Garrett even though John tells him it’s fine.

“She’ll come find us when she’s ready,” John tells him when they’re out in the barn, Garrett working on his car’s engine while John scratches behind Boomer’s ears, hands over tools as Garrett asks for them. “Just give her some time.”

He can see Garrett’s face pinch slightly; he wants to help but doesn’t know how to sit and wait. It can be frustrating how Garrett fluctuates between patient and impatient and usually it works out for him considering how far they’ve gotten, all things considered. But John knows Rachel and she won’t want to be crowded, even if it is just him and Garrett; the fact that she’s even letting Boomer near her is surprising.

Patting the dog’s side, he lets Boomer wander out of the barn, more than likely heading back to the house. Garrett sighs and looks at John with an apologetic smile.

“I know. It’s just…” Garrett rubs tiredly at his face and sits down next to John. “I dunno.”

They sit in silence for a while, Garrett clearly trying to work out what’s bugging him so much, but the stillness is getting to him, his hands twitching. Keeping the silence going, John stands up, tugging Garrett along with him, and leads him out of the barn and sets him loose on the junk shed.

John goes in after him. He figures it’ll be a good few hours before Garrett works through the nerves driving him up the walls.

\---

That night in the King’s Hot Springs Hotel was the closest John has ever come to having a heart attack.

Waking up to a Blissed out Garrett trying to drunkenly climb out a window on the _third floor_ and if it hadn’t been for Boomer’s panicked barking John wouldn’t have even woken up. Sometimes he really wishes he wasn’t such a heavy sleeper.

In his haste to get out of bed and to Garrett, John almost gets tangled in the blankets, but he manages to haul Garrett backwards into the safety of the room and _not_ falling three stories down to the concrete below. Taking a firm grip on the other man’s chin, John takes a close look at Garrett’s eyes and yep, glazed over and so dilated that his eyes look black instead of green.

Then Garrett jerks out of his grip and up on his feet; at least he’s using the door this time instead of _the window, seriously who does that?_ Even at John’s worst with drugs he never tried climbing out of a window.

And then John remembers that there are _stairs_ – two whole flights of them in fact – and he’s chasing after Garrett who moves surprisingly fast while high, but definitely not silently because Grace is up, rifle held in her hands, when John gets down to the second floor. Boomer at least seems able to keep up with Garrett.

“What the hell is going on?” Grace demands while John hurriedly tries to get dressed as he moves towards the stairs to the ground floor.

“Some of the Bliss barrels must not have been sealed properly because Garrett is high and running off somewhere and we should go after him before he does something dumb and dangerous.”

Grace curses under her breath and hands John a pistol. “Knowing him, something dumb and dangerous is _definitely_ going to happen.”

They take off running through the hills of Hope County, following the sounds of Boomer’s barking until they’re close enough to just follow Garrett. He’s still too fast, they’re barely able to keep him in sight. They cross through rivers and streams that John doesn’t remember ever seeing, run through patches of clustered trees that John knows weren’t there before; if Grace realizes this too she doesn’t mention it.

Eventually they break through the tree line into an empty field and there stands Garrett and someone else farther ahead of him. Grace and John call out to him, but Garrett doesn’t turn to face them before he takes off running after whoever the stranger is.

The chase continues for a little while longer until Garrett tackles the person to the ground and when they get closer John recognizes the stranger once he lifts Garrett off of him.

“Burke?”

“The Marshal? What’s he doing out here?” Grace asks as she takes hold of the squirming Marshal.

“No clue, but we probably shouldn’t stay here,” John says as he gets an arm under Garrett’s legs, suddenly feeling uneasy in this patch of unrecognizable wilderness. Something about it just feels… _off._

Grace lifts Burke into a fire man’s carry once he stops struggling. “I agree. Being out in the open right now is a bad idea. We should head back to the hotel.”

When she starts heading back the way they came the uneasy feeling intensifies and John can’t explain how or why, but going back that way just seems like an incredibly bad idea. Even Boomer isn’t following her.

“We should keep heading this way,” John says abruptly and Grace stops and looks at him.

“And why should we do that?” Grace asks. “I don’t know about you, but I don’t recognize this area at all. So we should go the way we came, it’ll be more familiar and less likely to get us lost.”

Except that it _won’t_ keep them from getting lost and it’s frustrating John to no end because he doesn’t know _how_ he knows that or how to even explain it. John shakes his head.

“Trust me, we don’t want to go that way.” Grace gives him a _look_ and John rolls his eyes. “Okay, bad choice of words considering it’s me. Look, if you won’t trust me then trust Boomer.”

Grace sighs but lets the dog lead them. They walk in the opposite direction Grace wanted to go and after about ten minutes of walking through more trees they end up on the edge of Lorna’s Truck Stop. Grace stops dead in her tracks looking beyond confused.

“This makes no sense. We went southeast from the hotel and didn’t change course once. There’s no way we should be here.”

Honestly, John doesn’t want to think about it at all, he’s just glad they’re out of that weird in between space and didn’t go the way Grace wanted to. It’s probably connected to the time loops somehow, but again, John doesn’t want to think about it.

“Well we’re here now,” John says and continues heading to the truck stop. “We should probably get someone here to take us to the jail.”

After that they kind of make a silent agreement to never bring it up again.

\---

A few weeks later finds John, Garrett, and the dog at Jessop Conservatory, the place where Faith grew up.

John’s only ever been here a handful of times, always at Faith’s invitation because even though she handed the property over to Eden’s Gate it still felt like it belonged to her. 

It still does.

He wanders through the halls of the house that Faith had admitted to him years ago never felt like a home to her. Faith’s parents had not been the kindest people. John huffs humorlessly at that.

None of them had kind parents. Not his parents, not Faith’s parents, not the Duncans, and from what he gathers Garrett’s father had been a real piece of work too.

The attic is the one place that remains completely untouched by Eden’s Gate, left exactly like how Faith left it once she took on her role nearly a decade ago, a thick layer of dust covering every surface. His eyes catch on the blood crusted on the leather straps attached to the wrought iron bedframe and has to look away, can’t bear the thought of all the terrible things done to his sister in this room over the years at the hands of her parents. Moves over to the window that overlooks the conservatory below, touches the words Faith had carved on the windowsill.

It wasn’t just hope she found; it was also more fear and pain, shackles of another kind in equal measures worse and better than the ones she had before.

John finds himself envious of Jacob; envious that his oldest brother has no fear of Joseph whatsoever despite knowing what he’s capable of. And when he thinks about it, finally lets himself think about it, John is terrified of Joseph, of what he’s become.

Sure, Joseph is still soft-spoken and empathetic, but there’s just something inherently, violently, _Not Right_ and yes, John knows how hypocritical that sounds because he knows he’s violently not right too. But Joseph’s _Not Right_ is different from John’s, different from Jacob’s too. 

John had just let himself be blinded by his need to be accepted, to have his siblings _proud_ of him; he didn’t want to be put up on a pedestal again, still doesn’t, but he just… he just wanted to feel like he belonged in his own family, that he got to keep someone, _something,_ for once. But looking back on it now, with eyes mostly clear, he doesn’t think he would’ve gotten that; from Faith and Jacob sure, but from Joseph? He gets the feeling that he would’ve spent his entire life trying to get approval from Joseph and never quite getting it.

It would always be just barely out of his reach.

John’s drawn out of his thoughts when Garrett finds him, doesn’t even try to hide the contentment and affection that floods into his veins at the sight of him.

\---

John hadn’t even noticed that Garrett was no longer following him until he hears the familiar sound of something blunt hitting the back of someone’s head and when he looks behind him he sees Garrett face down with one of the Peggie’s, as everyone likes to call them, standing over his prone body with a baseball bat in hand.

He’s moving before he even registers it, finds himself standing right behind the man as he says “We got the Deputy up here!” and comes face to face with John.

The man gapes at him and goes pale like he’s looking at a ghost and John remembers that in a way, this foolish man kind of is since Joseph declared him dead. Which stings a bit considering that he hadn’t even bothered to look for a body, to even confirm John’s supposed death.

There’s a choked off gasp as John punches him in the throat to stun and then digs into his eyes with his thumbs until they pop out.

It’s a reminder to himself how easy violence comes to him without even batting an eye when the screams erupt from the man and he feels no remorse.

“Do not touch what is _mine,”_ John hisses at the man.

\---

Garrett hasn’t found the words to express what’s been bugging him, but at least he’s not as on edge as he had been, and John is more than happy to take the little victories.

Rachel finally comes out of the guest room a few days later; she keeps close to John and is withdrawn. He’s used to this behavior and for a brief moment he worries that Garrett will take Rachel’s distance the wrong way, but feels ridiculous for it when he sees the relief flooding Garrett’s face at just seeing her out and about.

After a few more days she begins to branch out from John, usually with Boomer at her side.


	13. folie à deux

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> @GabbyD i agree that John is definitely the kind of dramatic asshole to use "Rumors of my death have been greatly exaggerated" in response to people believing he's dead

Looking back on his life, at all the things he’s done, the drugs he’s taken, the beds he’s shared with near strangers – all of the self-destructive behaviors he indulged in, practically tearing himself apart, all so that he could prove that he’s something. 

That he belongs somewhere.

He’d thought that with Eden’s Gate he was finally getting somewhere, but then he’d laid eyes on Garrett and it was like he hadn’t learned a damn thing, sparks of Lust and Greed setting him alight like a pyre of sin.

Time kept resetting itself, over and over again, and the flames were still burning recklessly, but then he looked, and he saw, that he wasn’t the only one burning.

The difference between his life now and his life before Hope County, Montana was that he had been looking for love in things that were not love.

\---

“Do you think we should tell them?” Garrett asks him one night in the dark as they lay there facing each other.

“Tell who about what?” John asks in return, fingers tracing over the _‘Wrath’_ he had carved into Garrett’s chest what seems like hundreds of lifetimes ago.

“Mary May and Rachel. Should we tell them about the time loops?” There’s an uncertainty in Garrett’s eyes, a knot forming in his brow as he gets lost in his thoughts. John shifts closer, his hand going from Garrett’s chest to comb through his hair, contentment settling in his bones when Garrett leans into the touch. 

“I don’t know,” he answers honestly. For a moment, he wonders if he should tell Garrett that he’s told Joseph of the resets, if Garrett would feel betrayed, angry, even though John had only told his brother about it before he knew that Garrett remembered too.

He’d told Joseph out of desperation, needing to be reassured that he wasn’t completely losing his mind.

Looking back on it now, John probably shouldn’t have said a damn word about it to Joseph.

\---

“Why?” Rachel asks seemingly out of nowhere from where she sits at the kitchen table.

John glances at her before turning his attention back to the eggs in the pan.

“Care to elaborate?”

Out of the corner of his eye, he can see her pick at a loose thread on the sleeve of her borrowed shirt.

“Why didn’t you tell me you were still alive?”

Now John turns fully to face her, turns the burner down low to keep the food from burning.

“Did you not trust me? Or Jacob? Joseph said you were dead and we _mourned_ you.” There’s tears in her eyes and cracks in her voice as she speaks and it hurts to hear the pain and the fear. Rachel won’t look at him, keeps her eyes downcast, so John goes and kneels before her, lets Rachel grip his hands tightly, almost painfully. “And Joseph—Joseph wanted us to keep going like you weren’t gone, wanted us to show Garrett the path to join the family. But I was so angry with him, for wearing your earring like some kind of trophy!”

“You shouldn’t believe everything Joseph says,” John tells her, feels the same blasphemous panic racing through his veins that he sees on her face at the sound of such heretical words. “The rumors of my death were greatly exaggerated, you know.”

Rachel swats at him, but there’s a tiny smile on her face and John smiles back. After a few moments though, the smile drops from her face and she gets a faraway look in her eye.

“I was… I was going kill him. Or turn him into an Angel, for what he did. What I thought he did,” Rachel admits quietly, hides her face behind a curtain of hair and shrinks in on herself. “But then he showed me mercy and you weren’t really dead _and why didn’t you tell me?”_

The urge to tell her the truth – about time repeating itself – hits John hard and fast, but he and Garrett haven’t come to a decision about telling their sisters so he should wait until they’ve actually discussed it further… but he can’t wait, though John thinks Garrett will understand.

“I…” John starts and then stops; it’s never easy to talk about the time loops, even with Garrett, because it can get confusing trying to keep it all straight. “Rachel, I do trust you, don’t ever doubt that. There’s a reason why I didn’t tell you – or anyone – though, and I’ll try to explain it as best as I can.”

\---

Garrett’s talk with Mary May didn’t go as well as he’d hoped.

John had been in the living room with Rachel when it happened, when there were suddenly raised voices from the porch, the slam of the door banging off the kitchen wall and a furious Mary May striding into the room looking murderous.

“What the _hell_ have you done to him?”

“What are you—”

She grabs a fistful of John’s shirt and leans in close, keeps her voice low.

“It wasn’t enough that your cult, your god damned _family,_ had to kill my mom and Billy, and drive my pop to suicide? Now you gotta drag the only family I have left into your batshit craziness?”

John can hear Garrett say something, anger in his tone, sees the tense line of Rachel’s shoulders, but it all seems distant when faced with Mary May Fairgrave’s fury.

“You know what you are? Selfish. _Greedy._ All you and yours do is take and take and _take._ He’s all I got left and you got him believing in some time looping _bullshit,”_ she sneers at him and that… 

That really pisses John off, honestly.

Wrapping a hand around her wrist, tight enough to warn but not to actually hurt – Garrett would never forgive him if he actually hurt her – and he leans his face in close, meets her glare with one of his own. He can feel his own anger bubbling over, can’t really contain it at this point even if he wanted to and right now he really doesn’t.

“That is _enough,”_ Garrett says before wedging himself in between the two of them, breaking line of sight and wow, John can’t remember the last time he saw Garrett look so livid. Mary May heaves out a sigh of frustration and storms out, and Garrett goes with her.

\---

Mary may doesn’t come back to the house after that, but Garrett’s phone will periodically go off with a few text notifications that he doesn’t look at until much later.

For the next few days, Garrett spends most of his time clearing stuff out of the junk shed with an impressive kind of tunnel vision that has John worried, so he keeps close but out of the way. Eventually, John gets tired of the silence, of how withdrawn Garrett is, and decides to go in after him.

He can see Garrett pause for a moment when he notices John, but then throws himself back into his task.

“So are you going to tell me what’s got you so worked up or are you going to keep ignoring everything and everyone?”

There’s tension in the line of Garrett’s shoulders and John watches a muscle jump as he clenches his jaw. With a huff, John reaches out, wraps his arms around Garrett’s middle, and steps closer until his chest is pressed flush to Garrett’s back.

“You’re mine and I’m yours, right? Don’t block me out, tell me what’s wrong.”

It takes a few moments but the tense shoulders relax and Garrett holds onto one of John’s hands, linking their fingers together.

“A lot—There’s a lot that’s wrong.” Starts and stops, but it’s something; at least Garrett is talking. John hums in encouragement and then it’s like the words just tumble out of Garrett. “It’s just that—Mary May says she trusts me but now she thinks I’m crazy. Maybe it’s asking too much of her to believe me about the time loops.”

“Probably doesn’t help that I’m involved in it too. She’d have an easier time believing you if I weren’t here; she does hate me after all.”

“Yeah, but I want you here,” Garrett tells him quietly and John’s heart swells a bit, holds Garrett a bit tighter. “But Mary May not believing me isn’t the only thing bothering me right now.”

“What’s the other thing?”

“When I go north to deal with Jacob, you won’t be coming with me.”

Well that’s news to John.

“Why not?”

Twisting in arms to face him, Garrett doesn’t look away from him. “Because you and Rachel are technically dead and Jacob has eyes and ears everywhere, so you two still being alive would be a secret for all of five minutes. And the Wolf’s Den really fucking hates Jacob, so if they catch wind of you they’re going to go after you.”

“I am capable of taking care of myself you know.”

“I do know that, but I won’t risk you. Remember back at the jail, when I had been thinking about forcing a reset? This is kinda like that.”

John narrows his eyes at Garrett; he wants to argue, thinks better of it and decides not to. But he really wants to. Maybe later he can find a way to convince Garrett it’ll be fine because the thought of letting him out of his sight unsettles something in John and he does not like it.

At all.

It sounds like the worst idea he’s ever heard, but if he’s pushes against it too hard too soon then Garrett will get stubborn.

So John gives in for now.

\---

A loud incessant buzzing sound coming from the bedside table wakes him.

With a groan, John twists around to see who’s calling, but a still sleeping Garrett shifts with him, chasing his body heat, and that makes it difficult to move. The phone stops vibrating when he manages to grab it so John lets go of it with a grunt, falls back against the mattress, ready to go back to sleep.

Just as he’s about to drop back off into sleep, the phone starts buzzing again and his eyes snap open. At this point he doesn’t care who it is or what they’re calling about, John reaches over, fumbles for a second, and slides the end call button across the screen. Whoever it is can call back later when it’s not the one day of the week he and Garrett sleep in.

But whoever it is keeps trying to call and John’s not going to keep doing this, irritation building up quickly. He finds out who’s calling when he grabs the phone from the bedside table and it just pisses him off more, because she’s not going to stop calling until Garrett answers. Shoving the still vibrating phone against Garrett’s face, John gets out of bed; he’s been awake too long, there’s no way he’ll be able to get back to sleep now.

There’s a groan from Garrett as he shoves his head under his pillow as John pulls on a shirt and a pair of boxers and no, John is not going to put up with hearing the damn phone off all day long. Enough is enough.

Picking up the phone from where it fell onto the mattress and removing the pillow covering Garrett’s head, John raps the offending object against Garrett’s forehead until he opens his eyes blearily.

“Answer your damn phone before I throw it out the window.”

Garrett groans again when he sees who’s calling.

“Talk to her. I mean it.”

“Shit, how long has she been calling?”

“Long enough to wake me up.”

“’m sorry about that,” Garrett mumbles, pressing a kiss to the corner of John’s mouth before finally answering the phone. “Hey Mary May, why’re you calling so early?”

As he heads downstairs John can hear Garrett say “10am definitely counts as early, Mary May, especially on Saturday.”

\---

A few weeks later finds John sitting out on the porch steps, looking down the dirt road that Garrett had driven down a while ago. He hadn’t been able to convince Garrett that he should go with him this time. Not even Boomer went with him.

“He’ll be fine,” Rachel tells him, but John can’t help feeling frustrated and kind of useless just sitting here.

Rachel’s right of course; Garrett will be fine, he always is. 

Doesn’t change the fact that John hates being left behind though.

And then, of course, the Widowmaker comes into view, driving up the road and kicking up a cloud of dust. Rachel tenses up next to him but John doesn’t take his eyes off of the semi-truck, gets up from his seat on the porch as Mary May gets out of the truck.

“Garrett left already,” John calls out.

“I know,” Mary May replies as she comes to a stop a few steps away. “That’s not why I’m here though.”

John raises an eyebrow at her and Mary May’s face twists like she’s tasted something sour.

“I’m not going to apologize for what I said, but I am sorry for breaking the one rule Garrett has about this house.”

“Rule?”

“‘Don’t grab at someone in anger or with the intent of violence,’” she recites and to her credit she actually does look a little remorseful. “So yeah, I’m sorry for grabbing at you but not for what I said. I still don’t believe in this _“time loop”_ shit, and I don’t like you and I never will, but I can try to be civil. For my brother.”

Mary May holds out her hand and John looks at her, sees how serious she is, and decides that being civil with her is the least he can do.

“I don’t like you either, but that seems fair,” John agrees as he takes her hand and shakes it.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> sorry again, there wasn't a lot of rachel in this chapter. i tried but with how difficult this chapter was being it just wasn't working out the way i wanted and im just so tired of looking at this chapter right now tbh
> 
> also mary may and john absolutely Don't Like™ each other at all


	14. dead on arrival

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> it's a double update lmao

As soon as Garrett crosses into Jacob’s territory, driving through the national park’s south gate, there’s that feeling of something clicking into place. A quiet but tangible reminder that all these time shenanigans are absolutely real.

 _Another lock in the universe_ Garrett thinks to himself as he coasts down the road.

It’s odd being on his own again; he’s gotten so used to having John close by. This is probably the most alone Garrett has been in months and he isn’t sure how to feel about it.

But this is for the best. If he’s by himself there’s less of a chance of John and Rachel being discovered, less of a chance of the Wolf’s Den deciding to make examples of them or using them to get to Jacob.

Speaking of the Wolf’s Den, Garrett has to decide what he’s going to do now that he’s here in the Whitetails. He could try making contact with them first, but that could make him seem suspicious, especially to Tammy, and that could make things trickier. Or he could let himself get captured by Jacob, but that could also lead to more problems, the biggest one being brainwashed and killing Eli.

But what if Eli’s death is like Virgil’s and Burke’s deaths? What if Eli ends up dead anyway at someone else’s hand?

It’s a tough choice because Garrett is essentially in freefall here.

For now, he decides to go to the Baron Lumber Mill and help Jess. After that he can make a decision.

\---

There’s the overwhelming stench of burning flesh and smoke, but the Cook is dead as well as the Peggies that had been with him.

“Dutch was right. Cook’s dead and… and I don’t feel anything,” Jess admits as they look down at the Cook’s bullet and arrow riddled corpse. “All I ever wanted was to find this guy and now… I don’t—I don’t know what I’m supposed to do.”

“Could fuck up some of Jacob’s shit. That’d really piss him off,” Garrett offers and it gets a small amused huff out of her.

“Yeah… Dutch’s been right about a lot of shit though, lately. The cult, Eli – maybe he’s right about you, too. So, um… thanks, for everything you’ve done.”

“Hey, no problem, seriously. I—”

The crackle of the radio clicking on cuts him off.

“There is someone out there pretending to be a soldier.” Shit, he didn’t think Jacob would take notice this quickly. Figured he could get away with a little more mayhem before he’d have to worry about being hunted. “They are killing our brothers and sisters, and putting this Project in jeopardy. I want this coward to know that they have my attention… My hunters are coming for you. There’s nowhere you can run.”

And then the radio clicks off.

“Well shit, looks like you got making Jacob mad all covered,” Jess tells him after a moment of stunned silence.

“All part of the job; making people angry and getting hunted down for it,” Garrett says as he fishes his phone out of his pocket and turns it off before handing it to Jess. “I need you to hold onto this for me. Don’t wanna lose it or have the Peggies going through it.”

More like he doesn’t want Jacob going through it and finding the texts to and from John.

“Yeah, sure,” Jess takes the phone and stashes it in her quiver for now. “But, uh… what about Jacob’s hunters? You don’t plan on actually getting taken by them do you?”

From what Garrett remembers, it doesn’t matter how far or fast he runs, those archers always seem to be able to get him.

“Not really a matter of planning,” Garrett shrugs and then points towards the northwest. “You should probably go that way and I’ll lead them in the opposite direction. And we should probably get going now because they have a tendency to be quick.”

Jess looks unsure, but ultimately heads northwest and Garrett takes off to the southeast.

He doesn’t get very far before an arrow laced with Bliss and some other questionable substances embed itself into his thigh and red tinges his vision. As he sprawls out on his back, his breathing becoming labored, the last thing he sees is a hunter looming over him.

\---

There’s screaming and flickering lights as he comes in and out of consciousness, can feel the rug burn through his jeans as he’s dragged through the Grand View Hotel, paper and trash littering the floor.

Garrett finally comes to though everything looks blurry and then there’s Staci Pratt in front of him, an angry looking cut across the bridge of his nose and fading bruises around his jaw and right eye.

“You shouldn’t have come for me. You should have run,” Staci tells him as he tightens the straps on Garrett’s wrists before hurrying away.

There’s a _click_ sound and then a slide of a deer carcass is on the projection screen.

“The world is weak. Soft.” Oh great, he gets to experience Jacob Seed’s brand of _survival of the fittest, the strong will triumph over the weak_ horseshit again. How lovely. “We have forgotten what it is to be strong.”

 _Shutter, click._ An up close shot of a wolf eating a dead animal replaces the dead deer on screen.

“You know our heroes used to be gods. And now our heroes are godless.”

 _Shutter, click._ Another shot of a wolf eating another dead animal. Garrett groans internally; this is like being forcibly shown someone’s artistic photography but it’s all just monochromatic pictures of a plastic bag blowing through the wind except in this case instead of plastic bags it’s wolves and the corpses of animals.

“Weak, feeble, diseased.”

How the hell had this brainwashed him the first time? Will it work on him now?

“We let the weak dictate to the powerful and then we are shocked to find ourselves adrift.”

 _Shutter, click._ Oh look, more wolves. But hey, Pratt shows up again from wherever he went, stands at the front by the screen and watches Jacob give his stupid speech.

“But history knows the value of sacrifice. Of culling the herd, so that it stays strong. Over and over, the lives of the many have outweighed the lives of the few. This is how we survived. And we’ve forgotten… and now the bill has come due.”

God, Garrett really wants to heckle him right now. Just boo and hiss for no reason other than the fact that he can’t _stand_ how wrong Jacob is, but the Bliss is still sitting heavy in his system, though it is starting to wear off.

“Now, the Collapse is upon us, and this time the lives of the few outweigh the lives of the many,” Jacob continues, either completely unaware of Garrett’s utter contempt for him or just not caring, and he takes hold of the arms of the chair Garrett is strapped to and leans in. “And when a nation that’s never known hunger or desperation descends into madness, we’ll be ready.”

Jacob’s eyes flick over Garrett’s face, but then catch on something just to the left of it and his gaze turns cold, glacial even. The man lets out a harsh bark of laughter and tugs on Garrett’s ear.

“Pretty god damn bold of you to come waltzing into my territory wearing a trophy like that, Deputy.”

Trophy? What trophy? Garrett has no clue what he’s—oh. _Oh._

John’s earring.

Garrett completely forgot he was still wearing it, so used to it by now it hadn’t even crossed his mind to take it off.

“Joseph wants you alive, despite killing our brother and sister. Thinks you’ll be an asset to us.” Jacob unsheathes the combat knife strapped on his thigh, checks how sharp the edge is. “But you know what I think?”

He looks at Garrett, as if waiting to see if he’ll ask _‘what?’_

“I think,” Jacob continues and Garrett really doesn’t like the way he’s twirling the knife between his fingers, taunting him with the threat of violence, “That you’re more of a liability than an asset. Too willful, too destructive, too much of a wild card.”

Jacob shrugs and fixes Garrett with a dead eyed look that reminds him too much of John.

“Joseph may forgive you for John and Faith’s deaths. Sometimes he’s too forgiving and it makes him unable to see the danger of certain people. But that’s where I come in, and cull the herd.”

Jacob moves surprisingly quick for a man his size, sinks the knife right through Garrett’s heart and pulls it back out before what happened even fully registers in his mind.

The pain catches up with him as soon as the knife slips free of his flesh, and his chest feels like it’s on fire when he tries to breathe. Looking down, Garrett can see blood gushing from the open wound at an alarming rate. The more he tries to breathe the more it feels like he’s drowning and in all honesty, he probably is.

“Shut up, Peaches,” Jacob throws over his shoulder at Pratt who had let out a strangled sob before turning to face Garrett once more. “I want you to suffer for what you did to my family, Joseph’s will be damned. You’re going to die an agonizing, slow death, and I’m going to enjoy every second of it.”

Fuck, he’s right; it’s going to be slow and agonizing and Garrett is going to die but he probably won’t stay that way for long.

The dying drags on for what seems like an eternity, the burning in his chest growing stronger and stronger with every raspy breath he takes, his limbs growing weaker and weaker. Garrett is so tired, feels so exhausted, but he can’t help but laugh.

“You’re… an idiot,” Garrett manages to wheeze around his rattling laughter. “Did you even bother to check for their bodies or did you take Joseph’s word at face value?”

Garrett takes a sick satisfaction at the look on Jacob’s face, but to be fair, he did just get stabbed in the heart by the guy and he’s still got a bit of Bliss running through his rapidly depleting veins and Pratt’s been abused and harassed by this guy for months now.

A cough wracks his body in a violent fit, some of the blood spattering onto Jacob’s shirt.

“Your brother is a liar and you fucking fell for it. They’re still alive you know. Joseph didn’t even go looking for them… just shed some crocodile tears for the camera and spewed some garbage and you… you ate it up,” Garrett smiles, showing off bloody teeth. “Looks like you’re not so strong if you buy into such a weak excuse, huh?”

Then Jacob’s face hardens into a scowl, but then Garrett can’t breathe anymore, his heart finally giving out on him and everything goes dark.

And then Garrett’s back in his car, driving through the south gate, but there’s a brief twinge of a phantom pain in his chest. He’s got a bad feeling that this is only the beginning.

Reaching up with one hand, Garrett tugs at his ear and John’s earring is still there. It’s not much, but it’s still a comfort to him; the next best thing to actually having John there with him.

\---

He goes to the lumber mill again, manages to shut off the first siren, but the second one is up top and there’s not a lot of cover to hide behind.

Fuck it, he’s just going to go for it.

Climbing up goes smoothly – frankly, he’s surprised no one caught him – but as soon as he reaches the top of it, Garrett comes face to face with a surprised looking Peggie. Who then proceeds to kick him in the face, knocking him off of the ladder and landing so badly on the crates below that Garrett gets whiplash at how quickly he ends up back in his car, driving through the south gate.

 _So it’s gonna be like that, huh?_ Garrett thinks and suddenly feels incredibly exhausted.

It’s kind of embarrassing how much he wants to just turn around and crawl back into bed with John and never get out of it, leave the saving of Hope County to someone else, but then he remembers how bad Pratt had looked in the Grand View and thinks better of it.

He got Hudson out of John’s bunker, so Garrett sure as hell can get Pratt out of Jacob’s clutches, no matter how many times he has to sit through his god awful speech and slideshow.

\---

The lumber mill is liberated again – this time without the kick to the face – and Garrett follows Jess’ lead through the dense cluster of trees, hunting for the Cook.

This time when Jacob’s announcement over the radio comes through, Garrett hands her his phone again, but also John’s earring. There’s an odd pang of loss as he hands it over, but he can get it back later.

A curse escapes him when the arrow pierces his flesh again – he doesn’t think he’ll ever get used to that and why do Jacob’s archers always seem to go for the thigh? And why can’t Garrett ever evade the archers? How do they always find him? It’s not like he’s got a flashing neon sign over his head.

Or maybe he does and no one bothered to tell him.

\---

The red slips over him like a well-worn blanket, the loud ticking of a clock greets him like an old friend.

The weird, dilapidated amalgamation of a building he’s trapped in still messes with his head. The oddly floating furniture and pieces of splintered wood makes him feel more uneasy than the faceless hostile people do. 

Garrett shouldn’t be here, this place is wrong and so is the soft, distorted version of _‘Only You’_ playing in the distance.

This place is a fucking nightmare.

\---

When he wakes up, his mouth is dry and his eyes are already open. How long has he been like this?

There’s a ringing in his ears and he’s got double vision going on, but he still recognizes Eli and Wheaty as they search for any survivors amongst the dead still strapped to their chairs. The overbearing stench and taste of blood distracts Garrett, doesn’t even realize Wheaty is lifting him up until he’s being dropped and lets out a tiny, pained grunt on impact.

He loses focus on the conversation around him, too preoccupied with trying to get his jaw to unclench but his muscles are too stiff to do so.

And then an intense vertigo hits him as Eli and Wheaty lift him upright.

“Eli, is this…?”

“Yep.”

Eli draws a knife and panic and phantom pain lance through Garrett’s heart, but the man only uses it to cut Garrett’s bindings.

“What the fuck is the Deputy doing here?”

 _Being brainwashed through the power of golden oldies and Jacob Seed’s weird artistic wolf photography_ Garrett wants to say but isn’t able to.


	15. expensive mistakes

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> i just finished jacob's region on far cry 5 and can i just say that i really hate his boss battle? like honestly, it was the most infuriating thing i've had to do so far in the entire game and i bet i'm not gonna enjoy john's boss battle because of the planes.
> 
> sorry, not as long of a chapter as i would've liked, but there's also not a lot of missions and whatnot in jacob's region, or at least it feels that way when compared to faith and john's territories. hopefully the next chapter will be a bit longer.

Tammy’s suspicious of him. It seems like no matter how many times he goes through the repeats she’s always going to be wary of Garrett.

 _And for good reason,_ he thinks, remembering how the first time around he murdered Eli. Sure it was while under the influence of _‘Only You’_ but that never quite cleaned his hands of Eli’s blood. Jacob may have been the real killer indirectly, but he’d made Garrett into a loaded gun.

Once he gets topside from the Wolf’s Den he radios Jess, has her meet him at the edge of the Park Ranger Station. She wordlessly hands over his phone and earring before following his lead into the station to take it back from the Peggies. It goes so smoothly that Garrett should’ve immediately been wary about karma or something because as soon as he and Jess head back into the woods after handing the outpost over to resistance members they run into a pack of wolverines.

Garrett hadn’t thought that there could possibly be a death more agonizing than being stabbed in the heart but it seems like the universe had been waiting in the wings to prove him wrong.

Things don’t go as smoothly after that.

\---

He never seems to make it much farther than being rescued by Wheaty and Eli, always hitting some invisible wall suddenly thrown up by the universe, like it’s pissed at him.

 _If anyone should be pissed, it’s me,_ Garrett thinks bitterly.

An arrow through his throat, trampled by bison, buckshot to the gut, being hit by a car, the list goes on seemingly for forever.

Just one little mistake after another, just building up and up and _up._

After he gets torn apart by Judges at the F.A.N.G. Center, as soon as he’s back behind the wheel, crossing through the south gate, Garrett floors the gas pedal, drives his car into the lake and lets it slowly fill with water.

He’s so fucking tired, this going worse than when he was going up against John.

Garrett just closes his eyes and lets the water take him.

\---

When he opens his eyes, he’s not driving through the south gate but instead in the hospital he dreamed of when he got knocked out in the graveyard. Except the entire place is underwater this time.

Huh.

Everyone here still ignores him and they seem to be moving fine despite all the water. Maybe it’s just because he’s currently drowning in his car.

There’s that odd sense of being in the hospital yet not again, and the sudden need to find whatever it is he’s supposed to. He thinks he remembers the way he needs to.

It doesn’t take him long to find the room he never reached in time, but there’s someone standing in front of it, looking through the door’s window at whoever or whatever is inside. As he gets closer, Garrett’s able to make out more distinct features, like blond hair, familiar blue-grey eyes, the tiny scar on the left cheek, the crooked grin when he sees Garrett heading his way, and—

Oh shit.

Oh _shit,_ it’s Billy.

“Billy?”

“The one and only,” Billy says and waves him over. Garrett doesn’t even think twice, doesn’t even question how this is possible, as he goes over to him, and looks through the door’s window when Billy points at what’s on the other side.

All Garrett sees is a young man with short brown hair, who has his back to them, holding a tiny pink bundle of tubes and _oh no._

“Is that…?”

Billy nods, a grim look on his usually sunny face.

“It’s not God he’s talking to.” Billy grasps Garrett by his shoulders, looking serious, urging Garrett to pay attention to what he says. “Remember that Garrett: it’s not God he’s talking to in there.”

He tries to nod, but then the water remembers what it is and Garrett’s drowning in the hospital with Billy’s words rattling around in his skull.

_It’s not God he’s talking to._

_it’s not God he’s talking to_

_it’s not God_

The water swallows him whole and fills his lungs.

\---

Garrett’s driving through the south gate once more after that weird not-dream of the hospital and Billy and he has to pull over because his breathing is coming in too sharp and short and fuck, he can’t do this.

With shaking hands he pulls out his phone and calls John.

“This was fucking stupid, I can’t do this, not by myself,” Garrett says as soon as John picks up, doesn’t care that he’s on the verge of tears. “I’m so tired, John.”

“Where are you?” It’s so good to hear his voice again and it’s right at this moment that Garrett realizes that it’s been at least a month’s worth of resets since he’s seen John even though _“technically”_ he saw him this morning before he left.

“South gate.” 

There’s a hushed conversation on the other end as Garrett gets out of his car, can’t stand to be in it right now, and sits on down in the gravel with his back pressed against the sun warmed metal.

“Stay there, I’ll be there soon. Don’t go anywhere.”

A huff of watery laughter escapes him as he buries his face in his free hand.

“Wasn’t planning on going anywhere.”

“Knowing your track record I half expect you to be on the other side of the Whitetails by the time I show up.”

There’s a shaky smile on his face at that and then all he has left to do is wait and try to not to fucking spiral out of control; if he’s not already at his breaking point then he’s dangerously close to it. He doesn’t know if he’ll ever recover if he hits it, doesn’t want to risk testing it out.

Roughly half an hour later he hears the Widowmaker before he sees it and Garrett’s up on his feet before John even gets out of the truck, doesn’t even stop to say _“Hi”_ before clinging to the man and burying his face against John’s shoulder, reaches one hand into the truck’s cab to hold onto Mary May’s because Garrett’s missed her too.

The imminent breakdown is soothed back into something more manageable when Mary May doesn’t hesitate to take hold of his outstretched hand and John clings back just as desperately.

“So much for trying to keep me out of the Whitetails, huh?”

“Yeah, so much for that,” Garrett agrees as he pulls back enough to look at John properly. A thought suddenly strikes him. “Is Rachel going to be fine by herself?”

“I can check up on her,” Mary May volunteers. “I’d offer to have her come crash at my place, but I dunno how Hudson would take it.”

Well that’s one worry off his mind. Mary May offers him a weak smile, like there’s something on her mind too.

“Hey, you mind if I talk with Garrett for a minute?” Mary May asks John and Garrett’s actually taken aback at the civil tone, but then again, maybe he shouldn’t be all that surprised considering the fact that Mary May willingly drove John here. Maybe they worked their issues out? Or at the very least called a truce?

John looks to Garrett, and he nods in response.

“Sure,” John answers and reaches back into the cab to grab his bag and heads over to Garrett’s car, far enough away to give at least the illusion of privacy if nothing else.

“Look,” Mary May says, staring at her hands resting on the steering wheel. “I’m sorry for making you feel like I don’t trust you.”

“Mary—”

She holds up a hand and Garrett shuts his mouth.

“Don’t try to tell me I didn’t make you feel that way, Garrett. You’re a terrible liar.” There’s a smile on her face, though there’s a sadness tinging the edges of it. “You came to me with this and I should’ve… I don’t know what. Probably shouldn’t have blown up and threw your trust in me back in your face like that.”

Garrett leans into the truck’s cab, carefully takes hold of her hand again, rubs her knuckles with his thumb.

“Look, my point is, is that I’m worried about you. I don’t know if this time looping business is real or not, but I believe that you’re going through something stressful regardless. You’ve got the whole county counting on you to fix the mess Eden’s Gate made and it ain’t fair to you to have all that pressure on you.”

A huff escapes Garrett.

“There’s a lot that’s happened in the county that ain’t fair, kid.” He thinks of what happened to Rachel, before and after joining the cult, all the lives ruined and lost, the terror caused by Eden’s Gate. He thinks of Billy found lifeless on the side of the road, of the questionable circumstances of Miranda’s death, the heartbreak of both deaths being too much for William. “It ain’t fair, and I’m very tired, but I’m going to make things as right as I possibly can.”

“When this is all over, promise me you’ll talk to somebody.” Mary May fixes him with a serious look that clearly doesn’t allow for any arguing. Not that he would. “I don’t—I don’t want…”

Garrett gives what he hopes is a reassuring smile. “I know. I will.”

If talking to some kind of professional after all of this will give Mary May some peace of mind then Garrett will do it. There’s a tight smile on her face as she gives his hand one final squeeze before withdrawing.

“Eyes on the prize, sport.”

“Always, champ.” They grin over the stupid nicknames, an old joke, and Garrett closes the passenger side door, walking backwards towards his car and John and watches as the Widowmaker turns around and heads back to Falls End. He leans into John’s side when the man wraps an arm around his middle and pulls him close.

“Better?”

There’s that feeling of the world tilting on its axis yet not changing at all, like a lock that hadn’t been set right fixing itself.

“Yes.”

\---

“I can’t believe you called them in,” John groans when Hurk and Sharky pull up to the lumber mill in their truck.

“Should I not have?” Garrett asks, looking amused at the way John's face slightly pinches.

“Hurk keeps trying to convince me to give him a ‘Monkey King’ tattoo like I’m supposed to know what that is.”

“Honestly, I don’t really know either. I think it’s something he picked up from Kyrat?”

“We doing this or what, Deputy?” Jess hollers from where she stands over by the fence.

Shit, right, hunting down the Cook. Again.

“Yeah, just a sec,” Garrett yells back and undoes the earring before placing it in John’s hand. “Need you to hold onto this for me.”

Cornflower blue eyes look from the earring to Garrett’s face, drowning something jagged that Garrett sees trying to well up.

“You do realize that this is still technically mine.”

“True, but we both know how much you like seeing it on me,” Garrett smiles, linking their pinkies together. “Your brother, however, does not.”

John frowns, places a hand over Garrett’s heart where Jacob had once stabbed him. Something that did happen yet didn’t.

“He always was protective of Joe and I.”

Garrett chuckles at that; _“protective”_ is a bit of an understatement. He presses a folded up map into John’s hands, plants a quick kiss on John’s lips before he starts heading over to Jess who is looking more and more impatient to get going. “I’ve got most of the Wolf Beacons marked, so have fun blowing those up with them. I'll call you after Jacob's _art show.”_

\---

After he’s rescued from the Grand View by Wheaty and Eli, after he wakes up in the Wolf’s Den to a pissed off Tammy, an irritated Jess shows up an hour after he radios her and gets his phone back.

“So John Seed, huh? Didn’t think he’d switch sides so easily,” Jess says after Garrett ends the call. “Always thought he was too much of a tool, but if he’s working with you I guess he’s not as hopeless I thought. I mean, he’s still a Seed and he’s done a lot of fucked up shit, but I guess he’s trying.”

A half-smile tugs at his mouth as he looks out over the forest below them as they wait for John, Hurk, and Sharky to show up.

“He did switch sides, right?” Jess asks when Garrett stays silent.

“Something like that,” he tells her, taking in the fresh air in an attempt to clear out the scent of blood and rot from his time in the Grand View.

“You know, I hate answers that aren’t really answers,” Jess mutters as she starts checking the fletching of her arrows.

“Doesn’t everybody?” Garrett thinks of Billy’s words from that not-dream when he drowned himself.

_it’s not God he’s talking to_

He’d already suspected as much, but then it leaves Garrett wondering.

Just who, or what, was Joseph actually talking to in that hospital room?


	16. when it all goes to hell

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> the dancing in a big empty house thing comes from a conversation between varric and fenris from da2 which can be found [here (third one under act 2)](http://dragonage.wikia.com/wiki/Varric_Tethras/Dialogue_\(Dragon_Age_II\)#Varric_and_Fenris) and i just felt like it fit john (whether he actually does or not is up to y'all, but personally i like to think he does, [especially to this song](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7iRfORVefws)).
> 
> also john is really into pop music, you can't tell me he's not.

Garrett can feel his pulse thrum unpleasantly as he paces by the Wolf Den’s main entrance while Jess sits on the steps, watching him silently.

“You’re gonna wear a hole in the floor if you keep that up. Either do it or don’t, just make up your mind. Giving _me_ anxiety just lookin’ at you.”

She’s right, of course she’s right; Garrett has to make up his mind about whether he should tell Eli about John being in the Whitetails or not.

Because if John’s going to continue being in the area, people will find out eventually.

It’s not a matter of _if_ but _when._

If Garrett tells Eli, he can control the situation, minimize any damage.

But it could also backfire spectacularly, and by spectacularly Garrett means it could very well end in violence and he’d rather not have to force a reset again.

He doesn’t want to find out what kind of fresh hell the universe would throw at him for it; seeing Billy in the not-dream was bad enough, dredging up a lot of things that Garrett can’t afford to think about right now, not when he’s so close to completing this even though he’s still not completely clear on the details.

There’s a lot to consider, a lot of variables. 

Namely, Tammy Barnes.

Garrett respects her, there’s no mistake about that. She’s strong and determined – hell, you kind of have to be with the Whitetails current situation – and good at taking her anger and rage and putting it to good use, and yes, Tammy’s not trusting of Garrett, and it chafes at times, but she’s got every reason not to trust Garrett and he can’t really blame her for that. 

If he tells them, then Tammy might demand he hand over John.

He might be branded a traitor, as truly untrustworthy, if he doesn’t and there’s no way Garrett would hand John over.

But if he doesn’t, then when they _do_ find out about John, they’ll definitely lose all trust in him for not informing them as soon as possible and then who knows what will happen then.

Probably nothing good.

So, really, at this point it’s a matter of which will cause the least problems, the least harm.

Garrett’s going to have to tell Eli.

“Earth to Garrett.” Jess waves a hand in front of Garrett’s face, startling him out of his thoughts. He hadn’t realized he’d stooped pacing. “You make a decision yet or did you fry that brain of yours with overthinking?”

He lets out a shaky breath as he draws himself out of his circling thoughts and nods.

“Yeah,” Garrett says quietly and looks Jess in the eye. “Yeah, I’ve decided.”

“And?”

“I’m going to tell them. In the long run, it’s better if I tell them now.”

Jess nods, turning the words over in mind.

“Cool. I’m going in with you.”

“You don’t have to—”

Waving him off, Jess heads towards the open doorway. “I want to. Besides, someone’s gotta make sure Tammy doesn’t try to shank you. Anyone can tell just by looking at her that she hates the Seeds – probably more than anyone else in the county – and you’re the only one who’s had any success in taking back Hope County from those Peggie fucks, so if she takes you out then we’re all fucked.”

A huff of laughter escapes Garrett as he follows her into the Wolf’s Den.

“Thanks. I really appreciate this.”

She shrugs.

“You helped me hunt down the Cook, I figure this is the least I can do.”

\---

The talk doesn’t go easy.

Tammy doesn’t try to shank him like Jess thought she would, but she sure as hell doesn’t look happy with this new information, and if looks could kill Garrett would be dead three times over.

Eli doesn’t look too happy either, but at least he isn’t glaring.

“So you mean to tell us that John Seed is alive and running free? After all he’s done?”

Okay, yeah that sounds really bad; Garrett hasn’t forgotten about the terror John has caused to Holland Valley, won’t ignore it, but he’s had other things on his mind, like keeping as many people alive as possible. And that includes the Seeds and Rachel Jessop.

Hell, he hasn’t really given much thought to what will happen after all of this, other than talking to a therapist like he promised Mary May, been too busy with the here and now.

At the very least John and his siblings will stand trial for all they’ve done, and all four of them will probably walk away free or with bare minimum punishment; John isn’t considered one of the best lawyers for no reason, after all. 

And Garrett… Garrett will probably end up going to trial as well, for all the damage he’s done, all the lives he’s taken. When this is all over and everyone is safe, he’ll turn himself in; probably turn in his badge as well. 

It’s only fair.

He’s ruined and taken just as many lives as the Seeds at this point.

It’s only fair, because Garrett won’t run from the consequences of his actions, no matter the situation’s context; even with the time loops, he can’t undo what he’s done.

“Yes,” Garrett admits, watches the flare of Tammy’s nostrils on a sharp inhale, the disappointment that makes Eli’s shoulders slightly slump. “I knew you would find out sooner or later, so I figured I might as well tell you now. I still plan on stopping Jacob.”

Tammy scoffs.

“Gonna let him go free too? Let his crimes go unpunished?” she asks him with a hard glint in her eyes, assessing him.

“I won’t kill him, if that’s what you’re asking. I never wanted to kill anyone.”

“Neither did I, but here we are.”

“Here we are,” Garrett agrees quietly, holding Tammy’s gaze. “I figure it will be easier to talk Joseph down if he sees that his siblings are alive and unwilling to stand with him. Either way, I’ll finish what I started and arrest him, as well as the other Seeds, and they will go to trial when all of this done.”

“It won’t stick, you know it won’t.”

“I know.” He glances at Eli, who has been silent for most of this exchange, then returns his attention to Tammy. “Which is why I’ll turn myself in too. I’ve got just as much blood on my hands as they do, and I won’t let them ignore the law, so I can’t ignore it either.”

Tammy doesn’t look convinced by this, but Garrett wasn’t expecting her to be.

“You want Jacob out of the Whitetails? I’ll take him off your hands, but that’s all I can promise you.”

Eli and Tammy share a look, communicating solely through facial expressions and body language, until Eli looks at Garrett.

“Alright. But you can’t bring John Seed here,” Eli tells him and Garrett nods. “I don’t care if he’s helping you, but he is not allowed to come here.”

“Of course. But I, uh… I do have one condition though.”

One of Eli’s eyebrows rise in question.

“You have to keep John still being alive a secret; if Jacob finds out it could throw a wrench in everything.”

Eli seems to debate this for a few moments before holding his hand out to Garrett.

“Fair enough.”

They shake on it and that’s that.

With that settled they leave the Wolf’s Den, politely ignoring the hushed conversation between Eli and Tammy. Garrett and Jess meet up with John, Sharky, and Hurk a little ways away from the Visitor Center, where a few members of the resistance are in need of a rescue.

\---

It’s not even fall yet and it’s cold in the mountains.

It’s so fucking cold that Garrett’s normally cold fingers are like icicles in this climate, and normally he’d just keep his hands tucked away in his pockets to warm them up, but it’s too much fun to slip them under the hem of John’s shirt and hear the man curse under his breath and glare at Garrett’s grinning face.

Much like he is right now.

“You’re the worst,” John mutters, but doesn’t push Garrett’s hands away. “If your hands are that cold just wear gloves.”

“Why bother with gloves when I’ve got you to warm me up?” The glare deepens at the sight of his toothy grin, but there’s no heat behind it, only playful annoyance that's just for show.

“I thought you wanted to go looking for this prepper stash, not flirt in the middle of the woods.”

“Don’t see why I can’t do both.” Dragging cold fingers lightly over warm skin makes John shiver and there’s a telling squeeze around Garrett’s heart. But he does take a step back, removes his hands from John and doesn’t miss the way the man tries to lean into the retreating touch. “But you’re right, should probably focus on finding the stash.”

\---

Garrett doesn’t remember much of what led to him waking up in one of the cages at St. Francis’ except for a radio call from Jacob, saying Joseph wanted to speak with him, and the near frantic warning from Dutch afterwards. Remembers shoving his phone into John’s hands – didn’t have to worry about the earring, they’d both agreed that John should hang to it until Jacob is dealt with – and telling John to head for the F.A.N.G. Center and either wait for Garrett there or go find Sharky and Hurk.

He didn’t look to happy at the thought of leaving Garrett, but the longer they can keep Jacob from finding out about John, and subsequently finding out about Rachel, the better. Even John isn’t sure what lengths Jacob will go to to keep their family together, unsure which side of the fence his oldest brother will fall on if it means he doesn’t have to lose his siblings.

Other than that, he doesn’t really remember what they had been doing before the radio calls, before Garrett headed deeper into the woods to lead the hunters away from possibly discovering John.

And then he got shot in the leg with an arrow. Again.

And now he’s in a cage, just like the first time through, with Pratt going on and on about the Strong and the Weak, the abuse at the hands of Jacob having taken their toll on his friend.

The other person trapped in the cage with him tries to give him some water, but Garrett’s too disoriented to focus enough on drinking it, sees the way the man’s hands shake at the sight of Jacob and Joseph approaching.

“Get out of here, Peaches,” Jacob sneers at Pratt, shoves him away from the cage as Joseph walks up and crouches before Garrett, wraps his hands around the cage’s bars and leans his face in close. There’s absolutely no fear or wariness on his face even though he’s close enough for Garrett to reach through the bars and smash his head against the bars like Garrett did to himself in the bunker when the world died.

Fuck, that seems like lifetimes ago, committing that one last rebellion, not letting Joseph get what he wanted and unknowingly causing time to repeat itself until he manages to get it right.

When he thinks about it, it’s almost like someone else did that. Like someone else caved their skull in down in Dutch’s bunker while everything burned to ash like some sort of baptism by fire.

Makes him wonder just how much he’s changed, if who he is now and who he was then would even recognize each other.

 _Probably not,_ Garrett thinks as he listens to Joseph confessing to murdering his own child in a hospital room.

The not-dreams have never gotten that far; Garrett’s only ever seen a young Joseph holding his baby, but it was like looking at a movie on pause, there had been no movement when Garrett and Billy had looked through the door’s window, everything static and unchanging.

_it’s not God he’s talking to_

He wants to ask.

He wants to ask so badly.

_Who were you really talking to?_

It would be so easy to write it off as Joseph just having an untreated mental illness of some kind – and he might, it’s a very real possibility – but it feels like that’d be too easy, considering the fact that _time repeats itself_ every time Garrett dies and forces him to fix the mistakes made by him and everyone else in Hope County.

“And in that moment I knew that God was testing me. He was laying out a path before me and all I had to do was choose.”

Garrett… Garrett can’t listen to this anymore. Can’t listen to Joseph Seed try to justify smothering his daughter. He thinks of Nick and Kim’s daughter, how Joseph would have no problem smothering her too if _“God”_ told him to, or if the Rye’s were taken by Eden’s Gate. There’s a reason why no one’s ever seen a Peggie under the age of sixteen, and there’s a rotten feeling in his gut.

How many kids has Joseph smothered in the name of _“God?”_

He can’t listen to this.

He just—He just can’t.

And if that means another reset happens – either at the hands of Jacob or Joseph – then so be it.

But he just can’t listen to this. Not again.

“You chose wrong.”

That brings Joseph up short, but his face is calm, blank, as he studies Garrett’s face.

“What was that?” Joseph asks, seemingly interested in what Garrett’s said, why he interrupted him.

“You chose wrong,” he repeats, voice croaking from how dry it is. How long has he been out?

Joseph remains quiet, seems to consider Garrett’s words. “I can see how you would think that. I don’t expect you to understand or accept this immediately. Most don’t. But then again, you aren’t most people, are you?”

The unblinking stare Joseph fixes him with is unnerving and Garrett struggles to not instinctually back away when Joseph leans slightly closer.

“John told me something interesting, before his death,” Joseph says, quiet enough that only Garrett can hear him clearly. “He told me of time repeating itself, over and over again. How he died yet woke in the church right as you arrested me. John feared that he was losing his mind, being punished for failure, so he told me of what he had been experiencing.”

_What._

“What?”

Joseph keeps staring at him and Garrett hopes his confusion seems more like skepticism than anything else.

“It was God’s test for him, to see if he could bring you into the fold and prove that he wouldn’t allow his sin to rule over him. Prove that he was worthy to God, worthy to live in paradise with us.”

_What are you trying to prove, and to who?_

John’s need to prove that he’s worth something makes more sense now, why he had seemed so desperate for Garrett to submit to him when he was still directly under Joseph’s thumb. Because Joseph knew his weakness, his need to prove that he’s not insignificant, and used it against him.

(Rachel's need to have a family that will love and accept her as she is.)

(Jacob's need to have a purpose again, to not feel like a broken toy soldier.)

Apparently Joseph has used his siblings’ weaknesses against them, to control them.

The loathing he feels at the sight of the man in front of him is immeasurable.

“I know you know more than you’re letting on,” Joseph tells him as he stands up. “But we’ll see what God has planned for you. We all have to serve God... no matter what He asks.”

And then Joseph walks away and Jacob steps closer, pulls that _damn_ music box out, winds it up, and lets it play.

Bright spots of light dance across Garrett’s vision as the world around him is suddenly bathed in different shades of red.

Things… get blurred together after that. Garrett doesn’t remember anything that he did while in that haze of red, just wakes up somewhere in the forest, hands slick with blood and surrounded by corpses. Scrambling to get up, Garrett manages to move a few feet away to vomit; it’s nothing but stomach acid, which means he probably hasn’t eaten anything in the past few days.

 _Small mercies,_ Garrett tells himself as wipes his mouth with the back of his hand. He doesn’t know what he’d do if some kind of questionable meat had come up, if Jacob was going to make him into a cannibal too.

When his legs no longer shake, Garrett uses his still intact radio to call John and starts looking for a road.

\---

The first time he says it, they’re hiking their way up to the PIN-K0 station.

Up until this point, Garrett hadn’t even been aware he’d never admitted it aloud, and looking back on it, he probably should’ve said it sooner.

“What was the point of having a house that huge?” Garrett asks, keeping an eye out for any Peggies flying overhead. There’s an amused look on John’s face, making Garrett roll his eyes fondly and lightly smack his shoulder with the back of his hand. “I can’t imagine having all that space for one person. Like, what did you even do in there all day?”

“Dance, obviously.”

The way he says it with such seriousness draws a disbelieving grin out of Garrett. “Bullshit.” 

“I’d run from room to room, choreographing routines.”

Just the way he says it gets Garrett laughing; the image of John doing just that, running from room to room to pop music (he’d discovered that it wasn’t _just_ the Backstreet Boys’ music the man had a fondness for, that he seemed to enjoy songs one could find in the Top 40’s).

Warmth swells in Garrett’s chest when John grins back at him, seeing the man look genuinely happy, and the words push up out of him before he even knows he’s saying them. The smile drops from John’s face, the words making him stop in his tracks and look like he’s been sucker punched.

“What?” The question is barely above a whisper.

“I love you.”

“What the fuck is wrong with you,” John says emphatically, taking hold of Garrett’s face in between his hands, turning his head this way and that, as if looking for some kind of injury or evidence that this isn’t really Garrett. “Did you hit your head or something?”

“No, but you’re being ridiculous.” There’s a furrow in Garrett’s brow a moment later. “If you don’t feel the same way then you can just pretend I never said it.”

A desperate shadow crosses John’s face, one of his hands moving to clutch at Garrett’s hip, pressing, digging his fingers in there, not enough to hurt, but hard enough to leave bruises. Desperate, needy in the way he has to leave his mark on Garrett.

“No, I do, I just…” John’s mouth twists, either unable to say what he means or unable to find the words the words to express himself properly. Fighting with himself about something. So Garrett waits, sinking one hand into John’s hair, the other fists itself in John’s shirt. There's something desperate and wild lurking in his eyes, thrumming away just beneath the surface. “Say it again.”

“I love you.”

Garrett barely gets the words out before John’s lips are crushed against his, beard scratching against his face, grip tightening on Garrett to just the edge of pain and Garrett holds back just as tightly. When he pulls back, John gasps like he’d been drowning, eyes looking watery and too shiny in the sunlight, and Garrett can't help but love this man, can't help but feel how his heart swells and constricts with intense feeling.

At the beginning of all of this, if someone had told him he’d fall in love with John Seed, Garrett would’ve thought they were delusional, but here they are now.

\---

The next time he gets captured by Jacob’s hunters, Garrett is treated to the story of how Jacob killed and ate his friend Miller while Pratt trims Jacob’s beard.

It’s clear to Garrett that Jacob has a lot of… issues to work out. Hell, all of the Seeds do. Even Garrett when all of this is done and over with. What the Seed family needed more than anything was professional help, not a damn cult. But knowing how fixated Jacob is on being _Strong_ Garrett’s pretty sure the guy would view acknowledging that there’s something wrong with him as a weakness.

And Jacob Seed clearly does not do weakness.

But allowing himself to wallow like this, to ignore that there is something very, _very_ wrong is weakness, in a way.

It reminds Garrett of people who try to control every aspect in their lives too much to the point where nothing is in their control at all.

It’s kind of sad, actually, to see someone who prides themselves on being strong but refuses to admit that they have moments of weakness. Because no one can be strong all the time, everyone has moments of weakness, that it’s okay to break down and admit that they’re not okay.

No one can last as an island, trying to do anything and everything on their own.

It took Garrett a long time to accept that, that even he has a breaking point.

Jacob though, he can’t even admit it, relies on that _“survival of the fittest”_ nonsense like a crutch, because it’s probably the only way he can rationalize what he did out in the desert.

But he’s relied on it too long, let it warp the way he views people, because survival of the fittest? Only the strongest live? That’s not actually how people work.

That’s not how people work at all.

Humans are social creatures, a community driven species. Sure, people can survive on their own, but people thrive when they can rely on and help others.

Maybe it wasn’t only the desert, but the abuse suffered at the hands of their father, the manipulation of the _“Father,”_ that allowed things to go this far.

But it doesn’t excuse Jacob’s actions.

So the music box comes out and everything goes red, red, _red,_ and Garrett wakes when it’s dark to Pratt freeing him from the cage. He tries to make sure Pratt comes with him this time, but then his friend shoves him off the balcony as the music starts up.

Garrett wakes again to daylight, sprawled on top of the empty truck.

\---

Garrett and John have just finished clearing out the Grand View with Jess and Grace, having rescued the guy Eli had been worried about being brainwashed.

They’re all out around back, close to Cedar Lake’s shore while they wait for members of the resistance to show up and secure the area. If they take out Jacob’s main conditioning facility it should put a huge dent in the cult’s hold on the mountains.

Point is, is that Garrett’s fucked up a lot Jacob’s shit by now so he isn’t really surprised when the final radio call comes in.

The guy had radioed the day before, taunted Garrett with the fact that the song still holds power over him, that he could have Garrett back at the veterans’ hospital whenever he wanted. It had pissed John off to no end despite how much he cares about his brother.

So Garrett knew to expect _‘Only You’_ to play at some point, he just hadn’t expected it to be so soon. It’s been too long since he made it this far, what feels like years and years ago. He doesn’t remember if it happened this quickly the first time.

The golden oldie comes in over the radio, and Garrett freezes but Grace snatches up the radio, tosses it onto the ground and John starts hitting it with a shovel until the sound cuts out completely.

For a moment, Garrett thinks that’s it, that he’ll be fine. That he won’t end up killing Eli.

But the song is still there, still playing in his head and it hurts. He can’t hear the concern from the others when he clutches at his head, the whole world tilting and spinning and going red.

_Only you…_

\---

He wakes to the sound of rain and the crooning of _‘Only You’_ but it sounds… off. Like a warped record being played, the singing distorted at odd intervals.

Garrett coughs, smoke pouring from his mouth, his lungs, a gaping hole in his chest. He’s gasping, trying to draw in air, to breathe, but the smoke, the fire, within him burns too bright and too hot, the air just fans the flames.

There’s a red fog, but it’s not like the one he usually experiences when _‘Only You’_ plagues him.

 _No, John smashed the radio before it could take hold,_ he reminds himself as he struggles to get up, but his legs won’t listen. The final straw to break the camel’s back; Jacob was going to use Garrett to kill Eli, but they’d smashed the radio, refused to let him be used as a weapon.

So what is this? Why’d he still fall into the red haze?

_—ome_

Fuck, he can’t stay here, can’t let these questions distract him. The point is, if Jacob can’t use Garrett to kill Eli he’ll just use someone else, just like Rachel did with Virgil.

He tries to get up again, wills his legs to listen this time and thankfully they do, but he nearly falls over twice, legs shaking too much. It’s dark here, wherever he is, but no so dark he can’t see; vague shapes and silhouettes in the shadows.

It’s wrong, all wrong, these shapes don’t fit, don’t look right, as he stumbles past walls of junk piled high. It reminds him of the stuff he’d find in the junk shed back home and that makes him uneasy.

His eyes hurt just looking at them.

_—e from Rome_

But he can’t stop, not now, not when he can feel his skin start to pop and crack from the flames burning away inside him.

So Garrett keeps going, pointedly ignores the shapes jutting from the junk that look like faces and limbs, ignores the way they move like they’re all alive in there. He trudges through the mud and rain, his torn clothes clinging to his skin uncomfortably, sways on his feet as he comes to what looks like a bottleneck that leads into a gully that twists and turns out of sight.

With a deep, shuddering breath, Garrett keeps going forward into the gully as _‘Only You’_ grows louder and louder to the point where it’s almost deafening.

And then he sees it, where the gully is at its narrowest.

It’s a hall of arms, just arms waving, grasping, moving about and Garrett’s heart beats too hard and painfully against his ribs. He doesn’t want to go through there, but it’s the only way forward.

He hates it, hates every second of it, as arms with rotting flesh smack into his face, grab at his shirt, pawing at him, trying to make him stay or free themselves or what he doesn’t know. 

Doesn’t want to know.

At the end, a pair of arms grabs onto him and don’t let go, their grip too strong. Garrett thrashes in their too tight hold, twisting himself up trying to break loose and he’s panicking because they won’t let go, the fire within him burning too fast, too bright, the flames pressing right up against the back of his eyes.

Biting down into the decaying arm, the flesh and muscle giving way too easily, the arms let him go and he falls into a puddle on the other side. The cold rain bites into him as he scrambles and slides through the mud away from those fucking awful arms, the red fog is stronger on this side of the gully.

Taking a minute to catch his breath, Garrett takes a look at his surroundings. It’s a lot of the same; red fog, walls of junk filled with writhing shapes, that damn song playing too loud.

But… there’s a dip in the wall, a slope leading up and away. An escape?

Garrett sure fucking hopes so, because there’s so much smoke and fire spilling from him now. He’s not sure how much longer he’s going to last.

_—ll come from Rome_

Shoving himself back onto his feet, Garrett makes a beeline for the slope, ignores the eyes watching him from the walls. He needs to leave and he needs to leave _now._

His stomach roils at the sight of the slope this close up; bones and decaying flesh, faces moving, trying to talk to him. But he can’t afford to be distracted by this. Time is running out to leave this place, to save Eli. He can feel it.

With a resigned grimace, Garrett starts climbing.

He ignores the sensation of what he really hopes is mud as his hands sink into the slope, pulling himself up it, ignores the shards of bone that cut into his palms, ignores how he recognizes some of the faces.

Garrett’s nearly at the top, nearly out of this hellhole, when something catches on his leg and pulls, making him land face first into the hill of corpses. A shout of pain escapes him as he’s slowly dragged backwards, teeth and sharp bones cutting away at his skin and when he looks behind him his heart stops.

He can’t… he can’t even describe what he’s looking at except for “too many eyes.”

Garrett starts struggling, kicking out with his free leg, hitting one of the too many eyes and starts climbing again when it releases his leg. He doesn’t even stop to see if it retreated or if it’s coming after him with a vengeance.

All he can think about is how much he wishes that the universe chose someone else because Garrett isn’t sure how much more of this weird shit he can handle.

At the top of the hill, Garrett doesn’t even stop to try to catch his breath, barely even sees that there are trees through the thick red fog, but he recognizes where he is, sees the hatch to the Wolf’s Den and Garrett fucking books it.

About halfway to the open hatch, Garrett hears something moving up the slope fast. He pushes his wobbling legs to go faster, but the rain and the mud make it difficult to stay upright, make him slip.

_—will come from Rome_

The sound of bones crunching stops and Garrett chances a look over his shoulder and yeah. Yeah. It’s following him. Too many eyes and a maw with too many teeth.

Just too much in general.

It slithers towards him and it makes Garrett feel sick watching it move, but it snaps him out of his daze and he starts moving towards the hatch again, using the mud to propel him across the ground. He falls into the open hatch, manages to grab the handle as he goes and slams it shut on his way down.

Garrett hits the concrete ground hard, a cloud of smoke puffing up around him, his skin popping and fracturing from the landing fire spitting out from in between the seams.

He can hear gunfire and frantic shouting from deeper within the bunker and climbs to his feet though it’s almost impossible for him at this point; Garrett’s practically falling to pieces, his flesh and muscles almost charred away to nothing.

Every room he passes through has dead Whitetail Militia in it and he follows it like a breadcrumb trail, moving faster and faster. He can’t let Eli die, not when he’s already failed Virgil and Burke and everyone else he wasn’t able to save in time.

He can’t fail Eli too.

Garrett finds Eli in what Jess has been referring to as the ‘war room,’ a gun being pointed at him by someone else Jacob has brainwashed. Without even thinking about it, Garrett shoves the would-be-killer’s arm up, the gun now aiming at the ceiling instead of at Eli’s head, as he tackles them to the ground.

Then the red fog is gone, there’s no smoke pouring out of Garrett, no fire burning him from the inside out, and the song has stopped playing.

But _—will come from Rome_ repeats in his head, echoing so loudly.

 _Thanks, I get the point, universe. Could you please stop being so dramatic? And maybe lay off the weird Lovecraftian horror show?_ Garrett thinks to himself as he restrains the clearly still brainwashed person below him.

Wheaty and Tammy show up at some point, both fussing over Eli who’s trying to wave them off.

“Shit, I thought we got ‘em deprogrammed,” Eli says when he gets a good look at them.

“Apparently not,” Garrett says, feeling incredibly tired. But he can’t stop yet, there’s still so much to do. “You guys got this handled? Because I gotta go hold up my end of the bargain, but I've got a call I need to make first. You guys have a radio I can borrow?"

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> garrett did not have a fun time (i got the idea for the wall of arms from rewatching the Labyrinth)
> 
> tbh, i imagine the deputy doesn't a fun time in general dealing w/ jacob. like don't get me wrong, i like jacob, his character is really interesting, but he's not devoted to the cult like john or faith are and honestly that scared me more than either of those two did. there's just something unnerving about him, but then again, that could be said for all of the seeds
> 
> (i would've included the final confrontation with jacob in this chapter, but i'm hella exhausted rn. it'll definitely happen next chapter)


	17. no man's land

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> we've got roughly 3 chapters left. the 20 limit isn't set in stone, there may be more or less chapters depending on how things go. and then there will probably be a "bonus chapter" that will be posted as its own fic, but i'm still kind of on the fence about it. again, it all just really depends on how things go and how i'm feeling after i've finished this, because as much as i love writing this and love this fandom (y'all have been great, your comments have really helped motivate me to finish this) this fic has also taken a lot out of me. of course i do plan on finishing this and the other fc5 fics i'm writing, but i'll probably take at least a few days off of writing once this one is done.
> 
> completely off topic, but i kinda want to make a list of the songs john listens to the most (it would p much just be all pop tho tbh because he's a Useless Twunk™)

Standing at the bottom of the stairs, Garrett can see the bunker’s door vibrating in their frame from how loud the music outside is.

He’s really not looking forward to this.

Well, he is and he isn’t; on one hand, getting this done and over with means they’ll be so much closer to confronting Joseph and having all of this finished. On the other, going outside means he’ll end up in the red haze again until he destroys all of the speakers Jacob and his Peggies have set up.

 _If you get this done, then you can go get Pratt,_ Garrett reminds himself and yeah, okay, that’s the kind of motivator he needs to just do this.

With a deep breath and double checking that he’s got the radio Wheaty gave him clipped to his belt, Garrett ascends the stairs and pushes open the bunker door to… blue skies?

 _‘Only You’_ is playing, almost painfully loud, and Garrett hasn’t… he hasn’t fallen into an angry red haze.

No red fog, no Judges suddenly appearing out of thin air, just blue skies and that damn song echoing across the mountains in a normal way, not in a _‘you’re brainwashed’_ kind of way.

Since he’s apparently no longer brainwashed, Garrett ignores the speakers and heads for Jacob, dealing with Peggies and Judges along the way.

Like, there’s still a bunch of snarling Judges making a beeline for him, but Garrett can actually see them coming this time instead of having a damn heart attack each time like he did the first time around. He feels bad having to kill the Judges, would rather take them to Dr. Perkins, but there isn’t time and honestly, Garrett prefers keeping his skin where it’s supposed to be instead of in the belly of a Judge.

The Peggies though, Garrett tries to go for non-fatal wounds, aiming to incapacitate, but there’s a few where unfortunately he’s pretty sure aren’t going to get back up ever again.

(He’ll have to radio the Wolf’s Den and have them come and get the Peggies, save who they can and hopefully dig out all of the brainwashing cult bullshit.)

As bad as it probably sounds, Garrett kind of wishes he had that horde of Angels with him again. It’d make this a lot easier, but what’s left of the horde is getting the help that they clearly need and he would honestly loathe tearing them away from that.

A bullet goes whizzing past, inches away from his head, and Garrett shakes away his wandering thoughts; now isn’t the time to be getting distracted, especially not with Jacob sniping from up high on top of that rocky outcropping.

Jacob yells something down at him as he climbs, something that suspiciously sounds like a taunt, but Garrett can’t really hear it because of the way it echoes around the mountains and because _‘Only You’_ is still blasting through the speakers.

“You might want to save your villainous monologue for when I can get up there and actually hear you, dumbass!” Garrett yells back as he ducks under an overhang, taking cover from more gunfire.

Jacob yells something back, probably couldn’t hear Garrett either because of all the noise and good fucking lord, they’re both dumbasses, just shouting at each other even though their voices get lost in that damn song. This is probably the most stressed Garrett has been in a while, but that’s a problem for later.

When the opportunity presents itself, Garrett starts climbing again, ignoring the way the rock cuts into the palm of his hands.

\---

They end up in a clearing in the woods, ducking and weaving through trees, shooting at each other. The stress intensifies way past unbearable; Garrett’s aiming for non-lethal shots whereas Jacob has no qualms about putting several bullets in either Garrett’s heart or between his eyes.

Because unlike John and Rachel, the guy has no fear of Joseph, no fear of the consequences of going against any orders to not kill Garrett.

But they’re both slowing down, getting more and more reckless and sloppy with their shots, the adrenaline making them tired as well as their wounds pulling wrong, limiting their range of motion.

He’s trying to figure out the best way to subdue Jacob before things get too out of hand (that’s a lie, things have been too out of hand since the helicopter crashed the first time, before the time loops) when the man lets out an odd laugh, accompanied by the sound of him staggering through the underbrush, towards the boulder he had once bled out on.

Suddenly giving up, too tired to go on.

“My brother saw all of this coming.” Jacob clutches the left side of his ribs, blood sluggishly leaking from a bullet wound, and sits down heavily on the boulder. Garrett stays where he is, peering around the tree he had been using for cover and discreetly pulls out his phone, sends off a text before pocketing it again and stepping out from behind the tree. “I don’t know if he talks to God… that doesn’t matter. He was right.”

“Humanity is once again in crisis.” Garrett takes note that Jacob has lost his gun somewhere, making it relatively safe to approach, pulling out his remaining med-kit to mend the wounds enough to ensure Jacob lives long enough to get better medical attention. “It doesn’t matter what we build and achieve… we will always find a way to break it down.”

Garrett rolls his eyes, puts pressure on the bleeding wound and it makes Jacob visibly wince. Shit, he must be worse off than Garrett thought.

“Babylon. Rome… Empires rise, empires fall… America. We’re no different.” He tries pushing Garrett away, but he’s weak from the blood loss so Garrett just swats his hand away, focuses at the task at hand and lets Jacob go back to his rambling speech about how everything and everyone is terrible. When his phone buzzes in his pocket he knows it’s time, makes sure that the bandages are tight and secure before pulling one of Jacob’s arms over his shoulder and hauls the man up onto his feet, letting him use Garrett for support.

The silence from Jacob is probably the scariest thing he’s encountered in the Whitetails as they make their way to the road where John and Grace and Jess are waiting for them.

Well, it is until the man starts laughing again. The near delirious laughter is probably because of the blood loss and adrenaline crash. He hopes.

“A little late to be merciful,” Jacob says, voice little more than a wet rattle. Garrett can’t decide if he should try to pick up the pace or not. “Shoulda just left me to die.”

“I can’t do that.”

“That so?” Jacob’s smiling like his death is inevitable and Garrett’s hilarious for trying to change that. “Would be easier to just leave me here. I’ve got no reason to keep going just like you have no reason to drag me out of here.”

“I’ve got plenty of reason to make sure you get out of here alive, dumbass, and so do you. Besides, dying in the forest might sound peaceful, but trust me, it’s not.” Garrett thinks back to when he’d been concussed at John’s ranch and had wandered into the library. Remembers the Robert Frost poem while he has to stop when Jacob stumbles, has to fix their balance as he takes on more of Jacob’s weight. “‘The woods are lovely, dark and deep, but I have promises to keep. And miles to go before I sleep.’”

“‘And miles to go before I sleep,’” Jacob finishes the stanza, apparently choosing to ignore Garrett's comment about dying in the forest, eyes going unfocused as he himself remembers something. He chuckles when the road comes into sight in between the trees. “Didn’t take you for a Robert Frost fan.”

“I’m not,” Garrett informs him, scanning the road for a car, for John. “But I know someone who is. He had a book of Frost’s poems even though he never fucking read any of it. Spine wasn’t even cracked, but he knows almost all of them by heart.”

Garrett drags them both to the side of the road while trying to pull his phone out and sends off another text.

“But I think you already knew that about him.”

“The fuck are you talking about.” Not even a question. Jacob’s shoulders tense as the car rounds the bend and Jacob looks like he’s about to have a heart attack when the front passenger window rolls down, panic and relief warring on his scarred face. Weird.

“Really loving the ‘victims of a slasher flick’ look you two have going on,” John says wryly, taking in their bloody and battered forms as he gets out to help Garrett with Jacob.

“If we’re the victims, then who’s the serial killer maniac?” Garrett quips as the backseat door pops open and then John helps him load a still gaping Jacob into the car.

“The both of you. That’s the cheesy plot twist that everyone saw coming.”

He snorts at that, bumps his shoulder against John’s before reaching into the car and taking Jacob’s bunker key. There’s a look of resigned exasperation on John’s face, but he just draws Garrett into a sideways hug, presses his mouth against Garrett’s temple. “Just don’t die. I’ll kick your ass otherwise.”

“Not if I kick my own ass first.”

“Hey, lovebirds! I’ll kick both of your asses,” Jess shouts from the driver’s seat. “Hurry it up or else asshole here is gonna bleed out in the backseat. Or maybe have a fucking stroke from the looks of it.”

“Do you even have a driver’s license?” Garrett asks, but Jess just rolls her eyes at him.

“Not important. But we gotta get a move on.”

He’s gonna take that as a ‘no,’ but driving without a license isn’t the worst thing to happen in this county.

With a little reluctance, Garrett takes a step back from John, who pushes something into his hand before getting back into the car. Garrett doesn’t even look at what it is until the car drives back the way it came and disappears around the bend once more. Uncurling his fingers reveals John’s earring.

A lopsided smile grows on his face as he puts it on, as if it always belonged on him. Maybe it did. Does.

But he doesn’t dwell on it for too long; he’s gotta go get Pratt from Jacob’s bunker. Garrett starts walking down the road, takes out the borrowed radio and calls Tammy and Eli, lets them know about the wounded Peggies he left behind.

\---

It’s unsurprising that Jacob’s bunker is the cleanest; the guy is all about maintaining the order of things so of course it would extend to all things under his command, whereas Rachel’s had been filled with Bliss flowers strewn over everything and John’s had been decorated with mutilated corpses. Though that had been after his supposed “death” (or at least Garrett really hopes it was after and that those bodies hadn’t been there the whole time).

Of course, now that Garrett is going through it and dealing with the most devoted, militant Peggies that are within it’s a lot less clean.

Going through this bunker feels like strange; he’s never made it this far since before the time loops began. Almost like it’s a new experience, but not quite since he still remembers most of it.

Some of it.

It’s been a lot of repeats, okay?

Down here between the slabs of concrete and layers of metal is nothing but an eerie quiet. Well, as quiet as it can get with the hum of machinery and the lockdown announcement playing on repeat. The point is, is that to Garrett, this place looks like hell; nothing but big blocky rooms the color of a depressing gray, recycled air, and florescent light. Garrett can barely stand being down here for however long it’ll take him to get Pratt out, he doesn’t know how the Peggies could stand the thought of being trapped here for the seven years – according to Joseph; Garrett’s read some of the cult’s teachings out of boredom – it would take before the surface would be mostly safe again.

He imagines that the lack of privacy would drive everyone out of their minds before they even came close to the end of the seven year deadline, regardless of how strong their devotion to Eden's Gate may be.

Garrett’s drawn from his thoughts when the _stench_ from the labs hits him; he’d forgotten about this part, all the dead dogs and wolves left lying around, reeking of decay and Bliss. Covering his nose in an attempt to stifle the horrible smell, Garrett moves through the lab to Pratt’s cell as quickly as possible. He hasn’t been here for very long but the smell is getting to him already. Garrett can’t imagine what it must be like for Pratt who’s been down here for at least a couple of weeks.

The recording of Pratt’s tortured screams and pleas to not be left alone in this room is the first thing to greet Garrett when he gets the door opened. Lead settles heavy in Garrett’s gut; he should’ve come for Pratt sooner, shouldn’t have left him with Jacob for as long as he did. He could try to justify it with the very loose plan he has, but it would only make the guilt worse.

There’s nothing that can excuse or justify the abuse Staci Pratt has gone through and Garrett would have to be a heartless fool to even try.

The man himself is slumped over in a chair, still breathing thank god, but it’s shallow and his face is covered in bruises and cuts.

Garrett gently shakes Pratt’s shoulder to wake him before cutting away the bindings keeping him trapped to the chair.

“Rook, are you real?”

“I’m real, Pratt,” Garrett answers as he helps him stand and doesn’t let go until he’s sure Pratt is steady on his feet, making sure he doesn’t fall into the inches of water they’re currently standing in. Garrett briefly wonders about that, but decides he doesn’t really need to know.

“He said that I was weak. That I deserved this. Maybe he was right,” Pratt tells him, voice rough from disuse and probably far too much screaming. Garrett wants to tell him that Jacob Seed is many things, but right is not one of them; he doesn’t though, can see the gears in Pratt’s mind turning, trying to find a way to deal with the trauma he’s been dealt. Garrett watches in silence as Pratt grabs a nearby sledgehammer and smashes the recording, making his torture stop playing on repeat.

There’s a sickening lurch when he hears Pratt repeating Jacob’s bullshit about the strong and weak.

“And the weak must be culled.”

\---

There’s no funeral for Eli, no burning pyre, because the man is alive and well and greets them with a smile while the rest of the Wolf’s Den celebrates the liberation of the Whitetails. 

Wheaty invites them to join, but with the way Pratt’s eyes keep looking for various exits and the fact that he hasn’t put down his shotgun since he picked it up Garrett figures it’s probably best if they left soon. So he begs off when he’s offered a beer, promises to properly celebrate with them all the next time he’s out this way and carefully steers Pratt out of the Wolf’s Den and back out under the bright night sky. His main priority right now is getting Pratt out of the Whitetails, get him as far away from the mountains as he possibly can at this point in time.

“Where are we going?” Pratt asks once they’re back in the car that Garrett had borrowed from an empty parking lot earlier.

“Gonna go see the Sheriff.” It’s vague, but the last thing Garrett wants to do is set Pratt off. The guy has been through a lot and the last thing he needs is to be implied to be weak even though Garrett doesn’t think he’s weak at all. In a precarious state of mind at the moment, maybe, but not weak.

Pratt’s managed to survive Jacob and that says a lot.

Garrett’s pretty sure the only reason he himself survived Jacob is because he wasn’t constantly under his thumb like Pratt was.

The look Pratt gives him tells Garrett that he isn’t fooled by his sidestepping the question, but thankfully doesn’t press it further, just turns his attention to the passing scenery outside of the car.

It’s sometime around midnight when they finally pull up to the county jail, Tracey and Sheriff Whitehorse waiting just inside the entrance for them. Pratt still hasn’t let go of his shotgun. It worries Garrett, but he knows Whitehorse will be able to help Pratt better than Garrett can. Besides, Garrett’s got his hands full with the Seeds who are staying at his house.

Before he leaves, he makes sure Pratt settles in and checks on the Angels. They’re still drawn to him, the brightest beacon of Bliss now that Rachel is over in Holland Valley. The thought of how much Bliss he’s been exposed to if the Angels are pacified by his presence alone still worries him, but not as much as it used to. If he hasn’t succumbed to the Bliss by now then it’s unlikely he ever will.

It isn’t until after Garrett’s checked in with the Doc on his progress that Garrett even thinks to check his phone. No missed calls but quite a few texts wait for him; there’s a couple from Sharky and from Hurk, asking if he blew up Jacob’s bunker without them, Nick’s sent him a new photo of his daughter, Linnea, Lin for short, at least three texts from Mary May asking where he is since John and Jacob came back without him, and one from John telling him to hurry up and come home. 

There’s a smile on Garrett’s face as he replies to most of the texts before getting back into the car and heads back to Holland Valley, makes a right at Lorna’s Truck Stop and takes the long way back, steering clear of O’Hara’s as much as possible.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> kind of a short chapter (this took me way longer to write than it should've tbh), but the next one should be longer and also get a better look at jacob's reaction to john and rachel.
> 
> thank you guys for reading and leaving comments! i may not respond to all of them, but i do read them all and just know that i really appreciate the time you guys take to write them.


	18. you make a fool of death

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> here's some good [john seed meta](http://unclefungusthegoat.tumblr.com/post/174568410779/a-theory-about-john-seed) that i spent like an hour looking for again because i forgot to bookmark it like the fool that i am
> 
> fun fact: i still haven't beaten far cry 5 yet because i don't want to fight john (i didn't want to fight faith or jacob either, but i accidentally got too many resistance points and had no choice) so i've just been avoiding holland valley like the plague lmao

The entire ride back to Holland Valley is mostly filled with silence, save for the car radio, and John’s arm twisted at an awkward angle so Jacob can keep some kind of hold on him, to reassure himself that John is really there, while Grace works on keeping him alive.

He’s sure that once they get back to the farmhouse that Jacob is going to tear him a new one for basically pretending to be dead for months now and that the only reason he hasn’t done so already is because he’s wary of Grace and Jess. If Jacob’s shocked now John can only imagine the reaction to seeing Rachel alive too; Jacob and Rachel were never really close, but then again Jacob never really got close to any of the Faiths. 

Always temporary, always replaceable.

Honestly, John hadn’t either, not until Rachel had replaced Selena, Rachel’s power of persuasion with Bliss being a lot stronger than Selena’s. Selena had replaced Lana, who had become doubtful of Joseph and the Project, had tried leaving and convincing others to leave as well and had been dealt with.

Lana had been thrown into the Angel’s Grave and John had never given it another thought. Now though… perhaps not regret, but his stomach roils at the thought of that place, one of the places that haunt Garrett when he sleeps, shudders at the thought of Rachel ending up down there. And Lana, or whatever remains of her, is down in those toxic waters with hundreds of others. A small part of him wishes he could feel remorse about it, about his apathy and allowing it to happen, but John knows he can’t, that his remorse wouldn’t be genuine and would probably be vaguely insulting. After all, the amount of people he actually cares about is so small that he can literally count them on one hand.

And Lana had replaced Felicity, the first Faith, and the one who had come to Hope County with them all the way from Georgia.

It was odd, what happened to Felicity; she’d been the most devoted, more so than Rachel, and had been the best at manipulating those under the influence of Bliss, but then one day the black haired, willowy woman had disappeared, as if into thin air. And Joseph had never brought her up again, never mentioned her in passing like he had with Lana or Selena, and in turn John and Jacob never brought her up either.

An unspoken rule that it was a bad idea to talk about Felicity.

The change in pressure on his arm draws him out of his thoughts, makes him glance out the window to see that they’re pulling up to the farmhouse, Rachel waiting on the porch for them with Boomer and Mary May, and then John looks over at Jacob, sees the slight pinch of confusion on his otherwise blank face.

“All right, get him the fuck out of my car,” Jess says as she puts the car into park.

“Your car? You stole this.”

“Can you prove that?”

“I was literally there when it happened.”

Jess shrugs as John gets out and starts helping his brother out of the car, Doctor Lindsey coming over to help him. “Doesn’t make it any less mine.”

John looks at her doubtfully, but doesn’t say anything further, focusing his attention on getting Jacob inside the house so Lindsey could patch him up properly.

\---

Two days after Garrett left for the Whitetails by himself and there’s a reset, the world snapping so suddenly that John finds himself back on the porch with Rachel and Mary May, having just agreed to be civil with Garrett’s sister and John knows something is wrong.

But Garrett doesn’t call or text him so John leaves it be even though he very much doesn’t want to.

Even though he wants to go find Garrett immediately, make sure that no one ever lays a hand on him again.

But he doesn’t.

John gets a bad feeling that this going to be reminiscent of the earlier loops, time just resetting itself at seemingly random intervals. They’re not at random though, John knows that now.

\---

They haul Jacob upstairs, lay him down on the other bed in the guest room, John and Mary May doing what Doctor Lindsey asks of them as he checks over Jacob’s wounds. It doesn’t take much longer than maybe a couple of hours, Grace having done a bulk of the work on the drive here.

When the work is done and Rachel watches them from the doorway with Boomer leaning his weight against her leg, Doctor Lindsey and Mary May excuse themselves.

“You wanna explain to me just what the hell is going on?” Jacob asks when it’s just the three of them and the dog. Letting out a slightly weary sigh, John sits down on the edge of the mattress and tries to figure out where to start.

“Garrett didn’t kill you and his friends saved your life,” Rachel says, sitting at the foot of the bed with Boomer resting his head in her lap.

“Thanks, Captain Obvious,” Jacob retorts, Rachel swatting at his leg in retaliation, before fixing his attention back on John. “What I want to know is why.”

“It’s really complicated, so bear with me,” John says and sets in for a very long conversation.

\---

The repeats keep happening over and over and John feels like he’s finally losing it, feeling more irritable and erratic than he did when he and Garrett were at odds.

Garrett sends him texts telling him that there’s nothing to worry about and that everything is fine even though that’s _clearly_ not the case. That more than anything frustrates the hell out of him, the fact that Garrett refuses to ask for help and tries to take everything onto his shoulders. It doesn’t help that almost everyone in Hope County thinks that he can do anything and everything and you know what? He probably could, but he shouldn’t _have_ to.

It’s with no small amount of irony that John acknowledges that he played a pretty big part in causing those problems that Garrett feels obligated to fix.

“It’s the repeats, isn’t it?” Rachel asks him and all John can do is nod. He’s too tired and angry to even really speak right now, feeling utterly drained after the twenty-seventh time the world suddenly snapped back to the porch. He doesn’t even protest as Boomer crawls into his space, the dog settling down awkwardly in John’s lap.

They lean into each other’s sides as John lets his mind go blank, not thinking of anything at all really.

\---

Jacob looks skeptical when John’s done explaining as best he can about time repeating itself. It’s the same look he had on his face when Joseph had explained what God had planned for all of them, but Jacob had still joined them anyway.

John hopes Jacob will join him and Rachel now, because he’d really hate having to tear their family up more than they already have.

“So the Deputy is doing all of this out of what, the goodness of his heart?” Jacob asks after a few moments of tense silence have passed. “He’s still a cop, for fuck’s sake. After all we’ve done he’s not just gonna let it slide. Have you even thought any of this through?”

A scowl creeps its way onto John’s face; he loves his brother, he really does, but good lord Jacob can take his role as the protective older brother and make it grate against John’s nerves sometimes.

“Yeah, I have, Jacob,” John says as he gets up from his seat and heads towards the open door; he’s really not in the mood to get into an argument with his brother who really should be taking it easy and not aggravating his wounds. But then again, he wouldn’t really be Jacob if he wasn’t always looking to pick a fight. He pauses in the doorway and looks back at his siblings. “If you’re worried about jail time, don’t be. I’m still the best lawyer money can buy.”

There’s a hushed conversation left in his wake, Rachel and Jacob quietly arguing with each other from the sound of it, and John makes his way downstairs, through the kitchen that is currently occupied by Doctor Lindsey and his research notes, and out onto the porch, Jess’ stolen car long gone.

“Family disagreement?”

John looks over and sees Mary May sitting on the porch chairs, specifically in Garrett’s favorite, and scowling down at her phone.

“Something like that,” John sighs. “Just Jacob being Jacob.”

There’s a flash of something that looks a lot like sympathy in her expression and she gestures to her phone. “Believe me, I know what that can be like. C’mon, have a seat, we can talk shit about our annoying older brothers.”

“Careful, you sound almost friendly.” But John sits down anyway.

“As if,” Mary May scoffs. “You’re still a jackass but Garrett is being Garrett and not answering my texts so I don’t know if he’s alive or dying in a ditch somewhere.”

“He’s fine,” John says but doesn’t really believe it himself. By the look Mary May has on her face, she can tell.

“Garrett Rook hasn’t been fine for six years and if he’s said otherwise then he’s god damn liar,” Mary May says flatly and finally puts down her phone, clearly fed up with trying to reach Garrett. “Sometimes I think he doesn’t even realize that he’s not alright.”

“Jacob’s the same way,” John admits, looking out over the unused, overgrown field. “He’ll have these moments where it’s like he’s not even in the same room. Just miles away somewhere else.”

“And if you try to point it out he tries changing the subject, right? Garrett does that too.”

\---
    
    
    Hurry up and come home.

John sends the text long after Mary May has left, the sun having set a while ago as he still sits out on the porch. The frustration from Jacob’s attitude has long since calmed, but he doesn’t want to go back in just yet. He knows that his brother’s reaction isn’t so much that he doesn’t trust John, but that it’s more like Jacob doesn’t really trust anyone who isn’t family.

Probably why Jacob didn’t really take to Rachel until John did. It makes him wonder, about a lot of things really, but it’s mostly just wandering thoughts, no clear conclusion or epiphany in sight. The buzz from his phone gets his attention, dragging him from this odd pensive mood that’s grabbed hold of him.
    
    
    soon

There’s a small smile tugging at the corner of his mouth and he doesn’t bother trying to fight it.
    
    
    Well that doesn’t sound ominous and vague at all.

John doesn’t have to wait long for another reply.
    
    
    says the guy who used to say shit like ‘well be coming for u real soon’
    
    
    also stop texting me im driving

John rolls his eyes but sends one last text before setting his phone aside.
    
    
    Breaking the law, Deputy? For shame.

At some point Boomer somehow manages to open the screen door and curls up next to his chair. Either Rachel sent the dog out here or Boomer can somehow tell that Garrett is almost back. John reaches down, patting the dog, and goes back to watching the sky as more and more stars peak out the darker it gets. It’s one of things that still fascinate him about Hope County, the night sky. With little to no light pollution out here he can see so much more of the stars than he could back in the city.

The screen of his phone lights up with another text.
    
    
    what can i say ur a bad influence

Then there are headlights coming up the dirt drive, Boomer’s tail wagging ridiculously as the dog races down the porch to greet Garrett. John gets up and heads over to them as Garrett spoils the dog with affection.

“You’re a mess,” John tells him as he takes in the sight of dirt stains, the holes torn wide in Garrett’s clothes, and the dried blood smeared on his skin. Sees his earring exactly where it should be – on Garrett – and he feels contentment settle in him again.

Garrett smiles at him and John’s mind goes blank at the sight of those dimples as Garrett kisses him, while linking their pinkies once more.

“I missed you too.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> @GabbyD, because you asked for it and also because i've been dying to share this list with y'all, here it is.
> 
> John's Top Ten Most Listened To Songs:
> 
> 1) [I Want It That Way - Backstreet Boys](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LwkrXybZ1uo) 2) [Run Away With Me - Carly Rae Jepsen](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7iRfORVefws) 3) [Toxic - Brittney Spears](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tVdr_JWmnsA) 4) [It's Gonna Be Me - NSYNC](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dyDBxOiR4dc) 5) [Sledgehammer - Fifth Harmony](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fSeNobqXogM) 6) [Hollaback - Gwen Stefani](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZA_7tmLw5rE) 7) [Just Dance - Lady Gaga](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lbG3DEMuxHw) 8) [Die Young - Kesha](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TcwCjp3YX24) 9) [Primadonna - Marina and the Diamonds](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=voFGDHKnGUE) 10) [SexyBack - Justin Timberlake](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=z1dJ9R1M6Dg)


	19. my eyes are black and red

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> i just realized that i never showed what Garrett looks like (well, i have, but it's in the comments somewhere and i don't expect everyone to go digging through there) so i'll just put it here. basically i just imagine him looking like an exhausted [Sean O'Pry](https://78.media.tumblr.com/746f23274dfc3e6ca003c294f087ef86/tumblr_ozxrygi9bf1qajhjjo1_500.jpg)

For once it isn’t his own nightmares or Garrett’s nightmares that wake John up in the middle of the night.

Garrett’s still asleep, draped over John’s chest, as the TV keeps playing whatever it was they had been watching earlier, and John can’t figure out why he woke up.

_Probably nothing,_ John decides and relaxes back into the mattress. He’s about to drift back into sleep when he hears a soft _thud_ and hushed swearing and John knows exactly who it is. Carefully, he tries to move out from underneath Garrett without waking him, but he must’ve not been as careful as he thought he was.

“’S goin’ on?” Garrett mumbles, voice thick with sleep, dark hair sticking up in odd directions.

“Nothing, go back to sleep,” John tells him, and he figures Garrett must be exhausted because he doesn’t persist, just burrows under the blankets. He makes sure to pull a shirt on before slipping out of their room and down the stairs as quietly as he can and makes his way out on to the porch, where he finds his brother slumped down in one of the chairs.

“Shouldn’t be moving around this much, you’ll reopen your wounds.”

Jacob glares at him, but it’s a shadow of what it used to be with Jacob looking far too pale and shaky.

“Shouldn’t be doing a lot of things,” his brother says pointedly, fumbling for a mostly crushed pack of cigarettes that have been left out on the small table that sits between the chairs. John doesn’t miss the way Jacob’s hands shake slightly as he tries to light a cigarette, but he can’t tell if it’s because of all the energy he must’ve exerted just to drag himself out here or if it’s everything he’s bottled up over the years finally spilling out.

John heaves out a sigh, because Jacob really shouldn’t be smoking right now.

“Jake—”

_“No,”_ Jacob cuts him off sharply, his jaw clenched so tight that John’s worried it’s going to pop right off its hinges. “You don’t get to do that; you don’t get to pretend to be _dead_ for _months_ and then act like it was no big deal. You don’t get to do that, John.”

He keeps silent, watches the plume of smoke rising up as the cigarette burns away, takes in the hunched shoulders and watery eyes. It’s weird and actually… scary, to see Jacob like this, looking weak and small when he’s always prided himself on being the strong protector of their family.

It scares John, because the only other time he’s seen Jacob even look remotely like this was when CPS finally separated the three of them, remembers seeing Jacob struggling against a pair of handcuffs as they hauled him away, remembers how he desperately tried to keep sight of John and Joseph for as long as possible.

And it isn’t until he remembers that night that he realizes how much his supposed death had affected Jacob. Realizes how much this whole situation has made _Jacob_ afraid again, like he had been that night all those years ago.

Not afraid for himself, but for him and Joseph, at the thought of never seeing them again.

Now John feels like the world’s biggest jackass.

Taking a seat in the open chair next to Jacob’s, John looks out over the overgrown field, at the old barn, looks at the junk shed, trying to figure out what to say without sounding like an inconsiderate jerk. And isn’t that a frustrating detail about himself? Put him in a courtroom and he could talk even the worst criminal out of a prison sentence, but this? Trying to sincerely apologize to someone he genuinely cares about? John is at a complete loss.

So they both just sit there in silence for a long time, Jacob stewing in his anger and grief while John tries to figure out how to so much as string two words together.

“I’m sorry,” John finally says, figuring the best way to apologize is to just be straightforward about it. Jacob looks at him out of the corner of his eye, but doesn’t say anything. “You know my reasons for doing what I’ve done and most of it I wouldn’t change at all, but I am sorry for the… hurt it’s caused you and Joseph. If I were in your position I’d probably be a basket-case.”

Jacob snorts. “You’re already a basket-case, John.”

He rolls his eyes, but his mouth twitches into a half smile.

“Okay, I’d be _more_ of a basket-case then.”

Jacob smiles back at him and it’s not forgiveness, John knows that, but it is reluctant acceptance of the situation and at this point John will take what he can get. They fall back into silence until Jacob finishes his cigarette and painfully lurches to his feet. There's more that John wants to say, the apology doesn't feel anywhere near enough, but the words still evade him and it doesn't feel like the right time to say more, if that makes sense. Besides, Jacob looks like he finally got his emotions back in check and he'd rather not cause his brother to explode. Knows how much that kind of control means to Jacob, knows how important it is.

“Help me back upstairs, will ya?”

It’s honestly the least John can do, so he does, even though the narrow and steep staircase makes it difficult.

When John returns to his and Garrett’s room, climbs back into bed with Garrett immediately curling into his side, still fast asleep, John thinks about how they’re going to deal with Joseph, if there’s any possible way of convincing him to step down. He’s still scared of Joseph, even now, knows Rachel is too, but John gets an uneasy feeling in his gut that it won’t end like Garrett hopes it will.

Sleep eludes him for the rest of the night, but Garrett manages to sleep the whole night through, a weird reversal of what usually happens for the two of them.

\---

There’s one abrupt reset after another and it happens so fast that John is left reeling and it causes his worry and stress to spike through the fucking roof.

And that’s about as far as John’s patience can go, can’t stand the thought of any more resets happening.

Can’t stand the thought of Garrett dying _again_ and there’s so many things wrong and messed up about their situation that John can even say that. Say that Garrett _died_ again.

Ignoring the weird look Mary May gives him, John pulls out his phone, about to call Garrett when Garrett calls him first instead.

“This was fucking stupid, I can’t do this, not by myself.” Garrett says before John can say anything and he sounds… his voice sounds so damn quiet and John thinks Garrett might be crying. “I’m so tired, John.”

He doesn’t like the sound of that, can read between the lines and that sets his pulse racing in something bordering on panic, because he’s got this sinking feeling about why there was one reset after another in such quick succession.

If he didn’t already hate these time loops then he sure does now, because they’re slowly destroying both of them, wearing them so thin. More so Garrett than John, but it’s still taking its toll on both of them. And he’ll be damned if he lets Garrett keep running off trying to save Hope County by himself. This is why John didn’t want Garrett going by himself to the Whitetails in the first place, didn’t care if the Militia caught wind of him or not. But he will concede that they had reason to worry about Jacob and Joseph finding out too soon that he and Rachel weren’t actually dead.

Still didn’t change the fact that he wasn’t happy about splitting up. At this point, John’s pretty sure he’d be willing to follow Garrett to Hell and back. Been willing to do so for a long time now, if he’s being honest.

Which is why John goes to him without a second thought.

\---

He’s got a lot of mixed feelings about only having most of his family here, though he’s pretty sure at this point Joseph would _not_ be welcomed here by Garrett, but he doubts Joseph was ever welcome here to begin with.

Not to mention how badly Joseph’s presence would affect Rachel now that she finally feels safe here and there’s absolutely no way John is willing to jeopardize her peace of mind, not even for Joseph.

John doesn’t think he’s ever seen Rachel as happy as she is now, sitting at the kitchen table and joking with Jacob over breakfast and poking at Garrett who’s trying not to fall asleep in his coffee. It’s jarring to realize that this is what a family is supposed to look like. Supposed to _be_ like.

No walking on eggshells, no waiting to be berated or condescended to. Just... enjoying being around people you care about.

It’s surreal to say the least. He thinks he might get hives from how nice it is.

And it gets even more bizarre when John’s attention turns back to the conversation in time to hear Garrett say to Jacob, point blank and with complete seriousness, “I’ll be dead and six feet under before I take any shit from you, you god damn furry.”

Which makes John choke and Rachel doubles over with hiccuping laughter when Jacob asks her what a furry is.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> this chapter is more of a part 2 of the previous one than being an actual chapter in its own right, but it at least allowed me the long awaited opportunity to have Garrett call Jacob a furry so there's that.
> 
> it's also not quite the reaction i wanted jacob to have to the whole "i can't believe you pretended to be dead, you absolute idiot" but it just wasn't happening the way i wanted it to and this was the version that i felt sounded the least stilted/unnatural


	20. my ghost, where'd you go?

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> we're in the home stretch you guys. just one more chapter and then the bonus chapter and this will be done. there's a lot in this chapter that either got left out because i couldn't figure out a way to incorporate it into the story without it sounding too forced or didn't come out quite the way i wanted it too, but i'm just so done with looking at and agonizing over this chapter so here it is lmao
> 
> (i might come back someday and rewrite/edit this but like i said, i'm so tired of looking at this chapter right now)
> 
> original title for this chapter was going to be "famous last words"

The difficult task of keeping the Seeds alive is finally over and now comes the hard part; getting Joseph Seed to back down, to call off the remaining Peggies who are blindly devoted to him.

Garrett has no fucking clue how he can convince a man as unhinged as Joseph Seed to just stop the whole cult thing and he kinda thinks the universe or whatever caused time to repeat itself could’ve found someone better to do it. He’s so _tired_ and he can tell John is too and Garrett really doesn’t want to deal with this anymore, just wants to hide away from the world with John but that’s not going to happen. Maybe after, when they’ve finally put a stop to Eden’s Gate. Someone else can deal with getting the county back up on its feet because Garrett is only good for breaking things and causing fires.

That weird dream he had back in the Henbane area comes to mind; Bliss flowers falling from Rachel’s eyes and Garrett going up in flames, skin cracking and splitting like a log in a fire.

_“You destroy everything you touch.”_

Which is really disheartening seeing as how he’s spent most of his life trying not to.

\---

“All the stars go waltzing out, one by one,” Garrett idly recites, leaning into John’s side as they sit out on the porch one night. “Until the sea recedes beyond the horizon, wanderlust to fulfill; A pilgrimage long overdue. No matter what you do or where you go, keep this phrase in mind: memento mori; remember, you will die.”

“What brought that on?” John asks, a faintly amused smile on his face.

Garrett shrugs. “I don’t know. Something I heard once as a kid, but I can’t remember where.”

\---

He figures he should go see Dutch; it’s been a while since he’s seen the guy and Garrett has really missed the gruff man.

Dutch has been a constant presence in all of the time loops and Garrett’s pretty sure that he would have lost his mind without Dutch talking to him over the radio. John doesn’t go with him, though he seemed like he wanted to, but was torn between keeping close to Garrett and keeping close to his siblings. As he turns the car onto the dirt road that leads to Dutch’s island, Garrett wonders just how long it really has been since he was last at the bunker.

He knows that _‘technically’_ he was last here maybe a few months ago, but through all the time loops it’s probably closer to years, maybe even _decades,_ since Garrett last set foot here.

Leaving his car at the Ranger Station, Garrett hikes through the woods, avoiding Peggies that haven’t been there for so long and never will be again.

Hell, it’s been so peaceful and quiet lately that Garrett’s taken to just carrying a pistol instead of, essentially, an entire armory. In a way, it feels a lot like before the time loops, before they went to arrest Joseph Seed. Feels a lot like he’s just out on another patrol, like maybe he got called out this time to tell Dutch that he can’t keep collecting rain water instead of Pratt or Hudson or Nancy.

Oh man, _Nancy._

Garrett hasn’t thought about her in a long time, but the sting of her betrayal is still fresh. A small vindictive part of him (that’s probably been a little influenced by John at this point; the guy _is_ fond of revenge and all that, though Garrett has managed to help him curb that spontaneous violence streak in him) can’t wait to see the look on her face when he and the others show up at the station.

He wonders if he should ask John for a few pointers on how to make it as dramatic as possible without going too overboard with it.

Before too long, he makes it to the bunker’s doors that always remind him of a storm cellar and hauls them open before descending into the bunker itself.

(A part of him is afraid to go in, afraid that he’ll find Dutch dead on the cold concrete and Joseph Seed waiting with bloody hands and that all of this has been a dream; afraid that he’s still slowly dying after caving in his own skull and that John is dead, killed by Garrett’s own hand after all.)

“Hey, Dutch, you here?” Garrett calls out once he’s in the bunker proper. He’s met with a vague yell of acknowledgement and follows it.

He finds Dutch in the ‘war room,’ almost all of the information and photos on the corkboard having been taken down. The only one that remains up is the one of Joseph, mostly blurred from an unsteady set of hands holding the camera.

“Haven’t seen you in a while, Deputy,” Dutch grunts as he fiddles with what looks like a ham radio, but Garrett honestly has no clue if that’s really what it is.

Garrett shrugs. “Been busy tearing up half of Hope County.”

“And sticking out your neck for the ones who tore up the other half,” Dutch adds, though he doesn’t sound disappointed. He doesn’t sound happy either. It can be kind of hard to gauge Dutch’s reactions to certain things.

“What can I say? I’m not really a fan of murder.”

“Believe me, kid, I know. And it’s not a bad thing, just surprising is all,” Dutch says, finally putting the radio aside. “I served in Vietnam and believe it or not, I know what it’s like to have your hand forced.”

Garrett nods and that’s that, nothing else needs to be said about the situation. He takes in the room, sees the different bits and pieces that probably belong to other radios and other electronics and Garrett snorts. “How long have you been cooped up down here?”

He can see Dutch rolling his eyes, but catches sight of a half-smile.

“Long enough for Jess to start calling me a mole-man.”

\---

Garrett stops by the Spread Eagle to see Mary May after seeing Dutch.

Hudson’s there too; she scowls at him and marches out of the bar, likely to go on a watch shift. She’s not too happy with John still being alive, not that Garrett expected her to, but once she caught sight of the earring Garrett started wearing again on his left ear Hudson stopped talking to him. And Garrett understands why that of all things pisses her off the most; to pretty much everyone who isn’t aware of the time loops (the ones who do know mostly consists of Mary May and John’s siblings), this thing he has with John seems completely out of left field and worrisome. There are many who view it as a betrayal and Garrett’s pretty sure there will be Peggies who think the same of John, Jacob, and Rachel when everything comes to light.

No one says any of this directly to either of them, seeing as how it’s due to the two of them and Garrett’s friends that the resistance even managed to gain multiple footholds in taking the county back.

Mary May shoots him a sympathetic look, though he knows she’s even less happy about him being involved with John Seed, but he appreciates nevertheless. “She’ll come around. Eventually. Maybe.”

“No, she won’t,” Garrett tells Mary May, but he’s not bitter about it. “It sucks, but it is what it is. Besides, my main priority is stopping Joseph anyway.”

Mary May nods and hands over a spare towel and Garrett starts helping her clean shot glasses.

“You know, I don’t think you ever told me why you became a cop,” Mary May says idly. “Pop and Billy were always so sure you’d go into music. Mom thought you might end up as a park ranger seeing as how much you love wandering.”

Garrett chuckles. “And what did you think I’d be?”

“Thought you might join the family business and run this place with Billy.” Mary May shrugs and moves on to cleaning pint glasses. “Y’know, when Pop finally decided to take early retirement or something.”

There’s still that stab of hurt at the thought of the Fairgraves who now reside six feet under in the graveyard at the Lamb of God Church, but six years has numbed the pain to something manageable; enough pain to know it’s a wound that will never heal, but not enough to debilitate like it used to.

“Well, those all sound like good possibilities,” Garrett concedes. “But I don’t think I have the right disposition to be a bartender like you or Billy or William. And I don’t think I’d make a good musician, considering I don’t like having large crowds staring at me. And as much as I love wandering through the woods, I don’t think I’d be very good at being a park ranger; all those tourists feeding the wildlife would drive me nuts.”

He can see one of Mary May’s eyebrows rising, because she knows it drives him nuts even now and he’s _not_ a park ranger. “Still doesn’t explain the decision to become a cop.”

Garrett mulls it over, if he should say the reason why. Fuck it, might as well. “You remember back when we were kids and William would get upset every time I showed up with bruises?”

“I remember that time you had to get half your face stitched up, and you told me and Billy it was because you and some kids had been messing with old windows panes left in an abandoned barn. And Billy called you a liar, but you wouldn’t tell us what really happened.”

Garrett huffs out a humorless laugh. “Cause if I told you two that I took a beer bottle to the face you’d both be up in arms about it and try to fight my dad.”

“You’re damn right we would. Your old man might’ve been one mean son of a bitch but that doesn’t mean he had any right to pull that kind of shit,” Mary May grits out.

Slinging an arm over her shoulders, Garrett pulls her into a sideways hug in an attempt to calm her down. It works. Mostly.

“That’s the reason I became a cop. Well, that and the fact that CPS won’t come within 50 feet of the county line and that’s just the tip of the iceberg. We’re just a Podunk little county that no one wants anything to do with and are happy enough to ignore us when we don’t have violent Doomsday cultists.”

“Hell, they ignore us even when we _do_ have ‘em.”

“Exactly. We might as well not exist to the rest of the state, but I don’t want any more kids to have to deal with that bullshit just because no one wants to touch the county with a ten-foot pole.”

Mary May nods, accepts his answer and they go back to cleaning out glasses and getting more drinks for the remaining patrons. They’re mostly down to moonshine at this point, a lot of the booze Mary May had stashed having run out already and most of the liquor Garrett finds that hadn’t been confiscated by Peggies went into making Molotovs. And Garrett gets to thinking about the choices made in life, about what he could’ve been but chose to be.

He remembers that Mary May had been thinking of going to college, but then Billy was murdered and all thoughts of college were the furthest thing from her mind. Garrett wonders what Mary May could’ve been if none of this had happened, if she’d been able to go to college.

“What about you?” Garrett asks once there’s a lull in activity, all the glasses cleaned and put away, most of the patrons having cleared out. “You ever think of going to college like you had been?”

He can clearly see her turning the question over in her mind. “Maybe, if things had been different.”

That seems to be a common sentiment in the past few months.

_If things had been different._

_If everything was the way it should be._

\---

After helping Mary May close the bar up for the night, Garrett heads home. It’s quiet, peaceful even, and if Garrett wanted to, he could probably pretend that everything’s normal and nothing’s wrong.

He’s never been one for lying to himself. At least, not too often, not when the fate of the county rests on his shoulders.

He still has no fucking clue how to convince Joseph to stop.

And he doesn’t want to think about it anymore.

So when he gets back home, late into the night, Garrett just crawls into bed next to John who immediately reaches out and pulls him over, holds him close. They lay there for a while, just looking at each other, memorizing the other’s face. And then Garrett’s thoughts wander to the conversation he and Mary May had back at the Spread Eagle, about what could’ve been different in their lives if things had gone differently.

Garrett wonders if things might have been different for John if he hadn’t been a lawyer, wonders why he chose to be one.

“Why a lawyer?” Garrett asks, watching John’s brow furrow in tired confusion.

“What?” John asks with a sleep rough voice.

“Why’d you become a lawyer? Was that what you always wanted to be?”

“Not particularly, no,” John answers. “I don’t mind being one, I'm good at it, but I wouldn’t say it was my first choice. The Duncans had certain… _ideas_ about what was a proper career and what wasn’t.”

“So what was your first choice?” Garrett asks, trying to steer the conversation away from John’s adoptive parents; John doesn’t like to speak of them too often and Garrett doesn’t want to make him talk about them if he doesn’t want to. He knows it’s a sensitive subject for John, and that he’s not quite ready to delve too deep into all the issues that resulted from that home life.

“Tattoo artist.” John holds up his right arm and Garrett guesses that he must’ve done most of those himself. “I knew I wouldn’t be able to actually do it as a job, not as long the Duncans were around. I could do it as a hobby, a side job, but not full time.”

Garrett can’t even begin to imagine what that might’ve been like, having the people who took you in not approve of what you want and making it feel like you have to conform to what they think is proper.

It occurs to Garrett that maybe John and his siblings turned out the way they did, not because of the abuse or cruelty or isolation they all suffered, but because they had no lifeline, no support when they had needed it most to lead them onto a less destructive path. Of course that isn’t to excuse all of things they’ve done; they had every chance to stop before Garrett showed up but didn’t. Of course for Rachel and John there was probably fear of how Joseph would react or what he would do, but Garrett also knows John and that he honestly doesn’t really care what happens to most people.

It’s complicated, difficult to parse through all of this even on a good day, and Garrett can’t really find the energy to really think about this right now. Another thing for later, when the immediate stress is finally resolved.

It's something to think about, at least.

“And when this is all over?” Garrett asks, shifts a bit closer until their noses are barely touching. “Will you go back to being a lawyer?”

“Probably. I doubt anyone in the county will want to pay me to tattoo them after this.”

\---

Rachel’s apparently taken to building a garden around Garrett’s house while he and John were away in the Whitetails.

“I think I’d like to take up beekeeping, if that’s alright,” she says while he helps her plant some new flowers. “I should’ve asked before I even started with the flowers, but…”

Garrett waves it off. “Nah, it’s fine. Besides, it makes the place look nice and less like a haunted house. I’ll probably have to ask around for spare beekeeping boxes though and that might take a while.”

The bright grin on her face at his answer is more genuine than any smile she had when she was still Faith. It brings a grin to his own face, and the sound of bickering from the porch only makes it grow wider; John and Jacob are playing poker with Mary May, Jess, and Grace and there’s just something… there’s just something really nice about it.

Because for the first time it doesn’t feel like this is a house that Garrett haunts by himself. It actually feels like a home and it’s kind of messed up that it took a cult and weird time shenanigans to make this happen, but for once he doesn’t care. Just enjoys the feeling.

\---

“Why are we here?” John asks as they pull up to Nick Rye’s airfield, Jess waiting for them by the open hangar.

Garrett’s mouth quirks up into a smirk, recalling memories of their conversation at O’Hara’s before haunted houses had been ruined completely for him. He refrains from being a smartass this time though it’s a struggle.

“Well, it’s a surprise. Kind of,” Garrett says as he turns off the engine and gets out, John following him over to Jess. “You haven’t been in a plane since forever and I figured it was time we changed that.”

“It’s not really a surprise if you tell me what it is immediately,” John says, trying for sarcasm but failing horribly because it sounds too soft and fond. “Doesn’t explain why she’s here though.”

“Wow, good to see you too, Seed,” Jess retorts and they mock scowl at each other. 

“Jess is here because Nick said, and I quote, _‘There is absolutely no way in hell that I’ll let John Seed use Carmina without someone keeping an eye on him to make sure he doesn’t steal her a second time.’”_

“And because I wanna blow up those silos,” Jess adds.

“Of course you do,” John says dryly. 

Jess elbows him. “Hey, you stole a plane. You don’t get to judge me.”

She turns away from them and climbs into the plane and John wraps a hand around the back of Garrett's neck, drawing Garrett in close enough to pepper his face with kisses.

“Thank you for this,” John tells him, pulling away slightly.

“No problem.” Garrett grins when John leans in again, catches the corner of his mouth with his own.

“Hey!” Jess calls out from the plane. “Are you two gonna suck face all day or are we gonna blow shit up?”

John smiles at him - his whole face lighting up with joy and Garrett knows it sounds ridiculously sappy, but it's the prettiest thing he's ever seen (hell, if he's being honest, _John_ is the prettiest damn thing he's ever seen) - before heading over to the plane. Garrett stays long enough to watch them take off before heading towards the Rye’s house. It’s been a while since he’s seen them, Nick and Kim busy with Linnea and figuring out parenting, Garrett with distracted with Hope County and the cult.

Kim is tiny but god damn if she isn’t as strong as Grace since she wraps Garrett into a bear hug and literally lifts him up off his feet the second she sees him.

\---

It’s embarrassing how _easy_ it was to forget for a while. 

To forget that the quiet peace was just the calm before the storm, a tower of cards ready to be blown over at any given moment. It was so easy to forget that the job wasn’t finished, not yet.

Garrett doesn’t pay too much attention to most of what Joseph says during his broadcast, only latches onto the important information.

“You took my family from me so that I could have yours. We will welcome them, with open arms… just as we will welcome you. We will be waiting for you where it all began.” 

He notices that this time, unlike the first time around, Joseph doesn’t cry at all. The man has a look of calm fury on his face, but there are no tears. Like he knows that his siblings are with Garrett, that they aren’t actually dead.

John is gravely silent at his side and they both reach for each other at the same time, fingers interlacing and holding so tight that Garrett knows both of their knuckles are a painful white.

Dread dances up and down Garrett’s spine; this feels too soon yet not soon enough. He’s afraid. Not of Joseph, but of what comes after this is done, because it will be, one way or another. They’ve been living in a repeating past for so long that Garrett’s afraid of what the future will bring, gotten too used to having at least a vague idea of what will happen and how to use that knowledge to their advantage for the most part.

There’s tension radiating from John and Rachel, a different kind of fear, and Jacob grits his teeth from where he sits on the couch, still not fully healed.

They all pile into Garrett’s car, driving back to where it all began. No one says a word the entire time.

They all knew this day would come, sooner or later.

\---

It’s kind of anticlimactic, when Garrett thinks about it in a detached sort of way.

The remaining loyal Peggies watch their arrival in disbelief, seeing their Heralds walking with the _‘snake in the garden’_ willingly. The stench of Bliss is almost overpowering, the open barrels everywhere in the main compound. As they come to a stop in front of the church where it all began Garrett can feel the world judder around them and he knows that this is it, there’s no more going back after this.

He doesn’t even have to look at John to know he felt it too.

The church doors creak open and out comes Joseph and Garrett finds himself standing in front of John, Rachel, and even Jacob, as if to shield them from their brother. Joseph doesn’t so much as glance at them, just stares at Garrett with a dead eyed look before taking a deep breath and looking skyward.

“‘And the Lamb broke the fifth seal, and I saw under the altar the souls of the Martyrs, slain because of the word of God…’” Joseph recites, his gaze falling back on all of them this time. He points an accusing finger at Garrett, taking a few steps forward. “You may not have killed them, but you’ve still stolen them from me, from their calling, from God. I am prepared to do the same to yours.”

Joseph steps around Garrett, around his brothers and sister, towards the group that approaches; Mary May, Tracey, Jerome, Nick, Grace, Jess, Tammy, Wheaty, and a few others so heavily dosed with Bliss that Garrett can actually see the green haze around their faces, rolling off of them in waves. The Sheriff, Hudson, and Pratt are all sober but have their arms bound behind them. Joseph comes to a stop in front of them, still facing Garrett.

“But, God is watching us. And He will judge us on what we choose in this moment.” He moves closer, until he’s right up in Garrett’s face and he can’t help but wonder if no one ever told this guy what the hell personal space means. It isn’t lost on him how he can hear Rachel shuffle backwards, away from Joseph’s approach, how he can feel the tension radiating off of John. Surprisingly – or maybe not when he really thinks about it – Jacob is the only one of his siblings who doesn’t seem to harbor any fear of Joseph. “I told you we were living in a world on the brink… Where every slight… every injustice… where every choice reveals our sins. And where have those sins lead us? Where have those sins lead you? Your friends have been taken and tortured, and it’s _your_ fault. Countless people have been killed, and it is _your_ fault. The _world_ is on fire, and it’s _your_ fault. Was it worth it?”

Garrett laughs.

He laughs and it startles him and Joseph and everyone who isn’t high off of Bliss right now. He laughs so hard that he actually doubles over a bit. 

“Jesus _Christ,_ do you even hear what you say when you talk?” Garrett wipes at the tears that formed due to his laughter. “It’s _my_ fault? I’m sorry, but who was the one who forcibly took my friends and family and other people against their will and abused and manipulated them? Oh, that’s right, it was _you._ You may not have done it directly, but you still caused it and don’t you ever, for one _damn_ second ever forget that.”

There’s a mix of indignation and righteous fury on Joseph’s face and all Garrett can think is _good._

Because Garrett can be just as angry as him.

“Countless people are dead not just because of me, but also because of _you,_ Joseph. You were the one looking for a fight, not me. So before you go blaming me for something that you were practically frothing at the mouth for, maybe you should ask yourself why.” Garrett pokes him harshly on the center of his chest, right on the cross at the top of the crown tattoo. “I may have set the world on fire, but I’m not the one who eagerly drowned it in kerosene and left out the matches.”

“When are you gonna realize that every problem cannot be solved with a bullet?” Joseph asks, clearly sidestepping Garrett’s question, avoiding responsibility when finally confronted with it.

“When you stop causing problems that start with bullets.”

Joseph’s face twitches into a barely there scowl, ignores Garrett’s interruption and keeps going with his speech, moving to stand in front of the open church doors once more.

“When you first came here, I gave you the choice to walk away. You chose not to.” Not much of a choice when the universe made it clear with a shovel to the back of the head that there wasn’t any option to ignore this. “In the face of God I am making you that offer, one last time… Put down your guns. And take your friends. You leave me my flock and my family… and you go in peace.”

“Go in peace? You’re fucking insane,” Hudson hisses.

“Is he?” Pratt asks. “We never should have been here in the first place…”

Sheriff Whitehorse just sighs. “You know what to do, Rook.”

“Remember…” Joseph has regained that annoying air of calm. “God is watching.”

“It’s not God,” Garrett says, still trying to get Joseph to back down. “And I think you know it too, at this point.”

“Make your choice.”

Garrett shakes his head. It’s not much of a choice.

He can either leave with only Sheriff Whitehorse, Hudson, and Pratt, leaving Mary May and the others to an uncertain fate. Leaving John and Rachel to a life of living in fear; Jacob would probably get by just fine, but still. Garrett can’t leave Mary May or John, or anyone else here.

 _“Make your choice.”_ Joseph hisses, almost impatiently so.

It was never much of a choice.

Not when it involves his sister and the guy who Garrett’s pretty sure at this point is the love of his life, as weird and messed up as that sounds when one looks back at their history, of how they first treated each other before the time loops. Not when it involves his friends and the very real possibility of other people being dragged into this.

There’s disappointment when he realizes that there’s nothing he can do or say that will change exactly how this goes. There aren’t any words to dissuade Joseph Seed from his ironically hell bent path. The man has been too set on it for too long. Maybe if Garrett or someone, anyone else, had been able to get through to him sooner, then maybe this could’ve been avoided.

“You know I can’t walk away from them.”

“Every slight. Every injustice. Every choice reveals our _sin!”_ Joseph looks past Garrett, towards John. “You were wrong, John. His sin is not wrath.” He looks back at Garrett. “You’d rather watch the world suffer and burn than swallow your _pride.”_

A part of Garrett wants to lean over to John and say _‘Wow, your brother projects his issues a lot’_ but now probably isn’t the right time for that.

But then Joseph knocks over the open Bliss barrels and Garrett accidentally inhales a lungful of the fumes and things get a bit blurry after that.

\---

“Forgive them, Father… they know not what they do…” Garrett hears Joseph saying, probably speaking with the voice of whatever it is that talks to him. He and John watch as Sheriff Whitehorse cuffs Joseph, who is quoting more bible passages. There’s a sense of relief that it’s finally over, but there’s something nagging in the back of his mind…

Then it hits him.

_The sirens—_

Garrett knows what’s coming, grabs John and makes sure his face is covered before covering his own face just in time for a bright flash to go off in the distance. Once the bright flash is gone everything erupts into chaos around them; everyone is shouting, Joseph’s singing _‘Amazing Grace.’_ But there’s also the sound of a baby crying, coming from the unnaturally darkened doorway of the church.

_Hurry._

It’s that familiar yet not voice again, and it sounds like it’s coming from the church.

_Hurry!_

Without even thinking about it, Garrett grabs John’s hand and makes a run for the church’s open doors that lead to pitch black, uses the chaos around them to make it without being noticed. If he’s wrong, Garrett would rather die here than be back in that bunker with only Dutch’s corpse and Joseph for company.

As soon as they pass through the threshold they’re enveloped in silence and an odd space where everything around them is pitch black.

“What in the world…?” John’s voice trails off as he tries to look around them but is met with nothing. “Where are we?”

“I don’t know,” Garrett answers honestly. “We—Do you hear that?”

He cuts himself off when he hears it again, a baby crying faintly in the distance. John nods and they both listen silently, trying to hear which direction it’s coming from, but it seems like the sound just echoes off of nothing. Maybe it doesn’t matter which way they go so long as they go?

 _find it find it find it_ the voice urges, so Garrett interlaces his fingers with John’s and they just start walking.

They walk for so long that Garrett loses track of time, but then again, this space feels so weird and disconnected from reality that Garrett’s not sure he ever even had a grasp on time here. And it isn’t until they finally come to a door that Garrett wonders if they actually moved or not, because there’s nothing around them to mark the passage of time or progress and he and John almost ran into the damn thing before they even realized it was there.

_right the wrongs_

_I thought I did,_ Garrett thinks but doesn’t say aloud.

He reaches out for the door handle, rests his hand on it, but hesitates opening it.

_go back to where it all began_

John’s hand wraps around his and they both open the door, and there stands a much younger Joseph, holding his infant daughter in a hospital room. Joseph’s talking in hushed tones with something only he can hear.

_it’s not God he’s talking to_

With a deep breath, Garrett steps into the room and Joseph turns his head to look at him and John who follows after Garrett. He looks so young. Younger than Mary May is now, younger than Billy when he died.

“Johnny?” Joseph’s voice is barely above a whisper, eyes red-rimmed and shining.

“Yeah, it’s me Joe.”

“Why are you—Where’s Jake? Is he with you?”

Garrett notices the hand poised around the baby’s breathing tube, ready to pinch it shut, and there’s an awful swooping in his gut. When he looks at John to see if he’s noticed it too, Garrett sees the conflicted expression on his face, unsure how to answer his brother. So Garrett decides to speak up.

“Is this your daughter?” Garrett asks. He already knows it is, but he has no idea what he’s doing and he’s pretty sure this is his only chance. A part of him is lamenting the fact that the universe didn’t choose someone else who’s better at hostage negotiations to deal with this.

“Yes,” Joseph answers, clearly confused and grief stricken, but there’s so much love for his child – his _actual_ child and not just some follower of his – and Garrett wonders just how persuasive that voice Joseph hears must be if it managed to convince him to murder his only daughter. “My little Faith.”

 _Faith._ There’s a dawning realization but no time to deal with it, no time to unpack all of the issues that come to light with that phrase.

“That’s a good name,” Garrett says carefully, eyes flicking from Joseph’s face down to the breathing tube then back again. “Did you and your wife choose it together?”

“Yes, but she’s—she’s gone now,” Joseph chokes out around tears. John cautiously approaches his brother, wraps an arm around his shoulder and lets Joseph lean heavily into him. “I can’t do this by myself, Johnny. I’m so _scared.”_

John shushes him and it’s clear to see that this Joseph doesn’t scare him, that this Joseph is more his brother than the ‘Father’ probably was.

“I’m so scared,” Joseph repeats, nearly sobbing into John’s shoulder at this point. “God wants me to prove myself, but I don’t think I can.”

And that sets off alarms in Garrett’s head.

Carefully, Garrett holds his hands out. “May I hold her, Joseph?”

Joseph looks at him, wary, but eventually hands over his daughter – Faith – when John tells him it’s alright to do so.

Faith is so tiny in his arms, tinier than Linnea, and the thought of someone as small and helpless as either of them dying leaves Garrett with a sense of inconsolable despair. 

“That’s not God,” Garrett tells him. “The voice that’s speaking to you, telling you to prove yourself, it’s lying to you. It isn’t God and you need to ignore it.”

Joseph doesn’t look convinced, but also torn about it, like he wants to believe Garrett, but his grief and the stress caused by it isn’t letting him think straight.

“Then what is it?”

“Honestly? I don’t know, but it’s definitely not God. And if it is? Would you really want to serve a God that asked you to kill your daughter? Your only child?” Garrett asks, and hopes that at least some of this will get through to him. Because if it doesn’t… If it doesn’t everything is just going to happen the exact same way. And he doesn’t know if he has it in him to go through all of that again. “If you do as that voice asks, then the world will burn. Not right away, but it will and all of it – everything John and I went through to try to fix it, to prevent it will be for nothing.”

Joseph looks like he wants to say something, maybe to argue or something, but then John speaks to him in a hushed voice and Garrett turns his attention back to the baby resting in his arms. A smile blooms on his face when Faith fidgets a bit, trying to make herself comfortable and there’s just a swell of fondness in his chest. It’s not surprising that Garrett has such a soft spot for kids, especially considering Linnea practically has him wrapped around her little finger.

This goes on for a while, the sound of soft crying as John speaks with Joseph while Garrett hums to Faith.

He only realizes that the other side of the room has gone quiet when John’s hand lightly presses into the small of Garrett’s back. A quick glance shows that Joseph has fallen asleep in a chair.

“I’m surprised you got him to calm down.”

“Wasn’t easy,” John admits, looking down at Faith. “But I managed to get him to promise to talk with a therapist or a grief counselor. Told him to reach out to Jacob since I’m technically still a kid and living with the Duncans.”

“Think he’ll do it?” Garrett asks, handing Faith over to John so he can hold his niece.

“I really hope so.” John sounds tired; they both are. “Nothing we can really do at this point except wait and see.”

It’s odd seeing John holding a baby. Before the time loops began, Garrett wouldn’t have trusted John with a child – or anyone, really – but now? Well, he’d still be a little wary about John’s dramatic tendencies being a bad influence.

After a few moments, John puts Faith in the hospital provided bassinet before dragging Garrett into a tight embrace. He holds him back just as tightly, buries his face against John’s shoulder and just breathes.

Garrett wonders what will happen now.

There’s a sharp sting in his temple, a sudden throbbing headache, and Garrett can’t hide the small hiss of pain which makes John pull back slightly and look Garrett’s face over for any injury.

“Garrett?”

 _I’m fine,_ he doesn’t say, because his vision is blurring and before he knows it everything is dark.

\---

Everything is dark until it’s not.

There’s a dull throb against his skull as he opens his bleary eyes to an annoyingly bright room. He tries to move, to sit up so he can see where he is, but his limbs aren’t cooperating so his arms just kind of slide uselessly against scratchy sheets.

“He’s awake! Mary May, go get mom and pop.”

It sounds like… but no, it couldn’t be.

Except that it is.

Billy’s face swims into view; blond hair and blue eyes and looking about six years older than when he had died.

“Hey, piano man,” Billy grins despite looking exhausted. “Gave us a scare when you got rolled in here the other night.”

_What?_

“You’re in the hospital. Took a nasty hit to the head,” Billy explains except it just raises more questions. “Mary May warned you volunteering for this would end badly.”

Garrett tries looking around, trying to find John, but he isn’t here and something like panic starts beating against his ribs.

“John?” Garrett slurs, trying in earnest to get upright, but Billy reaches out and gently keeps him from getting up.

“What?” Billy asks.

“John,” Garrett repeats. “Where is he? John was with me, where did he go?”

Now Billy looks as confused as Garrett feels.

“Garrett, who is John?”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> :^)
> 
> (and before you ask, no, this is not an 'it was all just a dream/coma' twist)


	21. long live the car crash hearts

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> yooooo i finally got around to making a [playlist](https://8tracks.com/edmunderson/caught-in-the-middle) for this fic (i would've made it sooner but i was waiting for a specific song to be released)
> 
> i can't believe this fic broke 10,000 hits holy shit. also can't believe that this is 21 chapters. like originally i never planned for this to be longer than maybe ten?
> 
> there is _definitely_ going to be a bonus chapter(s) because there was quite a bit i didn't get to in this chapter, tho idk how soon i'll get that posted (and i'll probably come back and do some big edits to this chapter at a later date)

It wasn’t a dream.

He _knows_ it wasn’t a dream, remembers it too clearly and vividly for it to be one.

This new reality he finds himself in feels like a dream; too good to be true yet there are some elements to it that make dread settle coldly in his gut.

“So, wait—I _willingly_ volunteered to go undercover as a cultist?” Garrett asks when Billy tries explaining to him how he ended up in the hospital.

“Yep. None of us were all that happy about it, but you were dead set on it.” Billy shrugs, scratching at the back of his neck as he shifts in his chair. “I don’t really know the specifics other than it was some Doomsday cult up north near the border. You sure you don’t remember any of this? I mean, I know the doctor said your memories of it might be kinda hazy, but that they’d come back.”

It’s not the only thing Garrett apparently doesn’t remember and they both know it.

Apparently Garrett doesn’t remember that William and Miranda retired from their respective jobs about four years ago. Doesn’t remember that Billy took over the Spread Eagle because of that. Doesn’t remember that Mary May went to college in Missoula and is working on getting her Master’s Degree right now. 

He doesn’t remember this life that is clearly the way things should have been in the previous one.

This is the way things should be and Garrett can’t help but feel out of place and slightly guilty because a part of him wants to go back.

Back to the time loops, back to the grieving, because that at least had been familiar to him.

Being in the same room with the best friend he’d been grieving and missing for six years isn’t familiar and is so far out of his comfort zone that Garrett doesn’t know what to do, how to process it.

“So do you? Remember it?” Billy asks, trying not to sound too hopeful. “Any of it?”

Garrett just shakes his head. The only Doomsday cult he remembers is Eden’s Gate, but he and John must’ve convinced Joseph because when Garrett got his phone back the first thing he did was look for any mention of Eden’s Gate on the internet and only came up with a handful of questionable websites, but none of them… None of them had anything that would make Garrett worried that they had failed.

And that’s… that’s good. 

That they didn’t fail.

That no one died.

He wishes he could feel completely happy about it.

\---

Going home is the hardest part, because Garrett knows it won’t be the same.

There won’t be any of the flowers Rachel planted, there won’t be Boomer running out to greet him; hell there won’t even be Jacob grumbling about something.

But most of all, there won’t be John.

(A part of himself wishes the universe or whatever it was that caused the time loops had let him die with the timeline he came from, because this is just trading one grief for another.)

And he has to spend at least two weeks doing nothing because Whitehorse wants to give him time to recuperate from the shit show of a bust that had landed him in the hospital. Two weeks in an empty house…

“Hey, you okay?” Billy asks as he turns the car onto the dirt road that leads up to the old family farmhouse. “You’ve been awful quiet. More so than usual.”

Garrett can’t find the words to express what he’s feeling right now, but he tries to smile reassuringly at his friend, though he knows it falls flat. “Yeah, it’s just…”

He wants time alone to try to work through what the fuck is going on, try to figure out how he fits into this new reality, but he’s also incredibly reluctant to let Billy out of his sight because there’s a part of him – a _huge_ part – that is _terrified_ that everything will break apart. Terrified that if he loses sight of Billy then his best friend will end up dead again somehow.

But Billy seems to get it and Garrett wonders how he ever forgot how understanding his best friend is.

“I gotta head back to the bar real quick to make sure Casey will be fine running the place by himself for another night, but then I’ll come back and we can hang out. Maybe even catch you up on what you missed during the months you were undercover.”

Garrett releases the breath he hadn’t realized he’d been holding in and nods. 

“Yeah, that’d be good.”

“Man, you will not believe what Boshaw burned down last month,” Billy says, grinning as they finally pull up to the house. 

A fond smile pulls at the corners of his mouth; it seems like no matter what timeline he’s in, Sharky will always be a pyro. “Was it another roller rink?”

“You really think they would’ve opened up another one after the first one got torched? Didn’t know you had a love for roller skating, bud.”

Billy snickers when Garrett jokingly shoves his arm as he gets out of the car. “Oh definitely,” Garrett dead pans. “I’m no King of the rink but I think I could give a run for his money.”

“We can test that theory out later when, y’know, your brain isn’t scrambled. But no, Boshaw burned down the tattoo shop across from the bar. Saw it happen with my own two eyes,” Billy says. “Which reminds me, no getting up to shenanigans while I’m gone. You’re supposed to be taking things easy until Doc Boyd gives you the all clear.”

“Yeah, yeah,” Garrett waves him off and watches the dust kicked up by the car as Billy drives back to Falls End.

Turning to look at his house, the emptiness and lifelessness of it hits him even harder now that he’s alone. He stands there for a few moments before finally heading inside.

There isn’t much dust, Billy probably having been by while Garrett was “gone,” but other than that it looks the same and Garrett still feels exhausted, but it’s different now. Just an all-consuming exhaustion and hollowness that he can’t seem to shake. One hand rubs sluggishly at his face and Garrett heads for the stairs.

Some sleep will probably do him some good. Make it so that he doesn’t have to be alone with his thoughts until Billy comes back.

The stairs still creak the same, his room still looks the same, but when he flops down onto the bed there’s just this inherent _wrongness_ about it that he can’t quite put his finger on, until he shoves his face into the pillows.

John’s side of the bed doesn’t smell like him anymore.

But then again, it probably never did in this timeline, did it?

It’s like being punched in the sternum, because suddenly it’s hard to breathe and Garrett can feel tears prickling at his eyes and he knows it’s ridiculous, but he can’t fucking help it because he _misses_ John so much and—

And it _hurts._

It feels like when Jacob stabbed him in the heart yet somehow worse than that.

“Fuck,” Garrett hisses at himself when the tears start coming and refuse to stop.

He wants to call John, ask why he isn’t here, but stops himself when he reaches for his phone.

 _What if he doesn’t remember me?_ a scared part of himself thinks. Because John sure as hell would’ve called as soon as he woke up wherever he is if he still remembered. Or he would’ve come looking or something. It’s been nearly a week since Garrett woke up in the hospital, so that’s… _What if he doesn't remember me, and he's happy as he is?_

Garrett doesn’t want to think about it anymore; he’ll just work himself up even more and it’s bad enough that he’s crying his eyes out right now.

So he curls up on the side of the bed that _should_ belong to John and buries his face into the pillow that _should_ smell like John but doesn’t.

\---

When he wakes up again, there’s a paw batting his arm. John must’ve forgotten to let Boomer out whenever he got up, since half the bed is cold Garrett assumes it was probably a while ago.

He groans and doesn’t bother trying to shove the dog away. 

“Go bug John, Boomer,” Garrett grumbles.

“Okay, I was going to ask what shenanigans you got up to while I was gone for half an hour that resulted in Rae Rae’s dog being here,” Billy says and Garrett’s eyes snap open, suddenly awake, and hauls himself up until he’s sitting, “But I think I’m more interested in finding out who this _“John”_ is. You mentioned him when you woke up in the hospital.”

Garrett’s mind is blank for a few moments, trying to catch up with what exactly is going on, but then Boomer is crawling into his lap and the teasing lilt falls from Billy and is replaced with concern as he comes closer.

“He’s the love of my life,” Garrett answers without even thinking about it, because it’s true. And it sucks because John more than likely doesn’t remember him (and even if he did, Garrett has no clue where to find him, if his number is even still the same here).

Billy’s eyebrows shoot up so fast that for a second Garrett’s worried that they’ll rocket off of his head, and the thought of that makes Garrett choke on laughter and tears.

Shit.

This is it.

If he hadn’t hit it in the time loops then he’s definitely hit it now.

Garrett’s hit his breaking point and just… _everything_ comes tumbling out of his mouth, a word vomit of a confession about how in another life, there was a cult here in Hope County, not up north. About how it tore up half the county while Garrett tore up the other. About how Garrett watched the world die only to cave his own head in to escape it. About how time and the universe at large kept fucking with him.

About how, in another life, Billy died and Garrett fell in love with John Seed.

His breathing is harsh when he finally stops, cheeks streaked with tear tracks, and Boomer whining and trying to calm him down. Garrett hunches over, burying his face in Boomer’s fur, shame and despair and anxiety burning away within him.

Garrett shouldn’t have told him any of that, because if it was difficult for Mary May to believe him _while_ it was happening then… He’s scared to know what Billy’s reaction will be. He’s scared to be rejected by his best friend and his family again.

There’s a still minute of silence, ice cold dread running up and down his spine, and then there’s a hand on his shoulder and Garrett has to bite down on the urge to flinch away.

He fully expects to be met with disbelief – skepticism at best – but is instead greeted with Billy hugging him, sandwiching Boomer between them, and just carefully rocks them all side to side.

“I’m so sorry,” Billy says. “I’m so sorry you had to go through that, and I’m so sorry that you have to go through this now.”

_What?_

“What?” Garrett croaks out, his voice sounding so tiny in the quietness around them.

Billy pulls back enough to look Garrett in the eyes, and Garrett notices that there are tears welling up in Billy’s. 

“You went through hell,” Billy tells him seriously. “You went through hell and you managed to find someone who was going through it too and together you two helped carry the weight of it. And now you’ve lost each other. That can’t be easy and I can’t even begin to _imagine_ what that must be like.”

“You believe me?”

A smile tugs its way onto Billy’s face.

“Garrett Rook, I’ve known you since we were nine, so believe me when I say, I know you’re a terrible liar and you would never even think of making this up in the first place.” Then he shrugs. “Like, I know I’m not a scientist or whatever, but who can definitively say that this kind of thing isn’t possible?”

A bark of relieved laughter escapes Garrett. “Thanks. For believing me.”

“Thanks for telling me, champ,” Billy grins and Garrett can’t help but grin back at him.

That’s something he’s missed a lot, Billy’s infectious grins.

“Honestly, it was probably only a matter of time, sport,” Garrett admits. 

Because it really was. He knows there was only so long he could’ve bottled all of that up.

“Now that that’s been mostly cleared up and as much as I love having this guy around, I really gotta ask: why do you have Rae Rae’s dog?”

Garrett shrugs.

“He must’ve let himself in or something because I was asleep.”

“Huh.” Billy looks down at Boomer. “Do you think she’ll mind if we spoil him? I got pizza downstairs from 8-Bit and I’m a sucker for a good dog.”

\---

“So I was killed by the cult that was run by the Seeds?” Billy asks later, when they’re slouched down on the couch with Boomer sprawled over their laps. Some Netflix show about weird house interiors is playing on the TV, but kind of zoned out, barely paying attention to what’s happening on the screen.

“Yeah. It was pretty bad.”

“That’s fuckin’ wild,” Billy says as he reaches for another slice from the pizza box. “I won’t ask details, because that would be morbid and kinda weird.”

“I’m surprised you’re being so relaxed about it. Kinda figured you'd be angry.”

Billy shrugs. “I mean, I am a little bit? But I don’t remember it happening, and I feel like that’s the kind of thing that you just had to be there for, I guess? That and I only ever died the one time, so it’s not like I had to keep reliving it like you did.”

Patting Boomer’s side, Garrett thinks about it; if he saw Jacob or Joseph right now he’d still be pretty pissed at them, because he remembers what they did even if they never did it in this life. He’s still sore about getting stabbed in the heart and being solely blamed for starting a _‘holy war.’_

“So… John Seed is the love of your life, huh?”

Garrett rolls his eyes at his best friend and brother, but answers him anyway. “Pretty much.”

“Are you gonna go find him? Or at least call him?”

“Nah,” Garrett swallows thickly around the lump in his throat. “I dunno where he is or if he even has the same phone number, much less if he even remembers me.”

He doesn’t need to look at Billy’s face to see that he disagrees with his lack of action.

“Besides,” Garrett continues. “I promised Mary May I’d get help after the time loops were over, and I figure I should.”

“Oh man, Mary May. Are you gonna tell her about this?” Billy asks, but Garrett shakes his head.

“I told her… _before,_ and she didn’t take it too well. I mean, she kind of came around eventually, but she didn’t believe it was actually happening. And I—I don’t think I could handle her not believing me about this again.” Garrett looks at Billy this time. “Promise me you won’t tell anyone about this?”

Billy nods grimly and holds out one hand. “Our secret?”

“Our secret,” Garrett confirms and they shake on it.

\---

It’s odd, being around Hope County after everything he’s gone through.

Sometimes he’ll be in town and see familiar faces from that other life; familiar faces of people who had been Peggies.

(People Garrett remembers killing.)

When Billy is too busy with the bar, Garrett spends time over at the Rye’s place; apparently in this life he’s still Linnea’s godfather, and he’s still friends with a lot of the people he came to know in his other life, his original life.

And it’s odd, how new memories filter in over the two weeks of rest, how they’re vague but still detailed enough that he gets the gist of what he should at least pretend he remembers, though it’s odd that he’s getting them at all. It’s like looking at someone else’s memories, watching someone else’s life.

He wonders if this is the universe apologizing for screwing him and John over.

(A better apology would be if they were still together.)

Garrett finds a therapist over in Missoula, though most of their appointments are by phone, which is a good thing because it’s easier to omit certain things over the phone (like the whole time shenanigans thing. As accepting as Billy is, Garrett is very well aware that it’s unlikely any therapist would believe him, though apparently the universe has decided to be merciful and make his encounter with the cult up north similar to his encounters with Eden’s Gate so he wouldn’t have to lie so much. At least, he hopes it’s mercy).

Whitehorse stops by every now and then to fill him in on what’s been happening in his absence. Pratt is still as sarcastic as Garrett remembers him being, Hudson got a girlfriend, and Nancy’s still the gossip of the station.

(Oh man, _Nancy._ Garrett guesses he won’t be getting that petty revenge after all. Well, it’s not the important in the grand scheme of things.)

He sees the burnt shell of a storefront that used to be the only tattoo parlor for miles and it makes Garrett wonder if John’s still a lawyer in this life or if he finally got the chance to do what he wanted.

A lot of his time over the next two weeks is filled with thoughts of John whenever Garrett isn’t actively focusing on something else.

It distracts him so much that William notices, but he doesn’t push for any information.

“I know you went through a lot in the past few months, and that it’s gonna be with you forever,” William says to him before he and Miranda are due to head back to their traveling and sightseeing (ever since they retired they’ve finally gotten around to being able to live out their dream). “But I hope you find peace with it someday, son.”

Garrett hopes so too.

\---

When the two weeks are up things go back to business as usual.

Well, as normal as it can be. There are still a lot of blanks of this new life for Garrett and it’s jarring to see Pratt and Hudson as they were, completely unchanged from their time with the Seeds because it never happened here.

Either way, Garrett’s thankful for it, that they’ll never have to go through that. And for the fact that he’s back at work now, because as long as he keeps himself busy he can’t think about what happened and who’s missing from his life.

(People in that other life called him brave for standing up against the Seeds, but it wasn’t bravery, it was doing what was right; if he really was brave he’d take a chance and either call John or go look for him, not hide away in Hope County.)

(Billy tells him it’s normal to be afraid of getting hurt, but it’s not getting hurt – emotionally or physically – that scares him. He’s scared of John looking at him like a total stranger, of those too blue eyes of his looking at him without any recognition.)

He almost doesn’t recognize Nancy when he first walks in because of long it’s been. The last time he saw her was before they went to arrest Joseph Seed, but there she is, graying hair pulled back in a bun and crossword book in hand.

“Heya, Rook.” She smiles at him and there’s a sudden swell of frustration that he has to force down. _There,_ the frustration would’ve been justified. _Here,_ it’s completely misplaced. “Glad to have you back. Maybe now Staci will stop driving everyone up the wall.”

Garrett snorts. “If that’s the case maybe I should just head back out before he sees me. Go on a fishing trip or something.”

Whitehorse claps him on the shoulder and welcomes him back too, Hudson gushes about her new girlfriend, and Pratt is well—Pratt.

\---

The dreams he has during the night make him painfully aware of how he doesn’t fit here, not quite.

He dreams of all of things he’s done, of all the things done to him.

Dreams of fire and blood on his hands that will never wash away, even if the people he killed are alive again. 

Haunted by ghosts who never were.

He dreams of Bliss flowers and white, unseeing eyes left to rot away down in the Angel’s Grave. Garrett goes out there one day, Jess tagging along, but doesn’t find any dead Angels.

There’s no stench of rotting flesh there anymore.

He dreams of a red haze and snarling wolves, but when he listens to the song, nothing happens.

Garrett knows how take apart a rifle and put it back together again in no time at all and he knows how much pressure and strength is needed to snap a neck.

He knows what it’s like to be under mortar fire and what it’s like to fire mortars and he knows what the after effects look like on the human body.

He feels like a monster and sometimes when he wakes the stench of smoke and blood is all he can smell. 

He dreams of a gleefully manic smile and bright blue eyes, the harsh bite of _‘Wrath’_ being carved into him yet he remembers the gentle touch those hands were also capable of, when they were no longer terrified of not being able to hold on to him, when they were no longer obsessed with hurting anyone and everything within their grasp.

Those dreams hit him the hardest, reminding of what he had and what he lost.

Reminding him just how much he doesn’t quite belong here; how his jagged edges don’t really fit in here.

Those dreams leave him feeling ripped open and raw and barely able to hold himself together.

Boomer usually shows up not long after, the dog somehow finding his way into Garrett’s home just to shove his way into Garrett’s space.

(It happens so often that Rae Rae just gives him Boomer. “I can’t keep him in the yard no matter what I do, and he seems adamant on sticking with you, so you might as well just keep him, Rook.”)

\---

There was a loud bang outside of the bar and Garrett immediately drops behind the counter, eyes going glassy and trying to remember why he doesn’t have any of his guns on him. His mind races as he listens for more gunfire, trying to figure out how many Peggies have come to try and take back Falls End, tries to remember where Mary May is but the last time he saw her was after leaving a hospital and _that doesn't sound right but it does_ and...

And he can’t hear anything over the loud rush in his ears until Boomer’s shoving his face into Garrett’s that he even realizes that Billy is saying something.

“It’s okay, Garrett. It was just a truck backfiring, you’re safe.”

Garrett goes limp with relief and only nods, too afraid of his voice cracking with stress and anxiety right now, nerves like live wires right now.

He tells his therapist about it during their next phone appointment.

“It’s understandable, after what you’ve been through,” she tells him.

“I just—I don’t think I can do my job anymore if this is how I react,” Garrett admits.

It’s not the only reason he’s been having doubts about his job lately.

“And…?” she trails off, prompting him to really get to the heart of the matter.

“And… I dunno. I’ve—I don’t think my heart’s in it anymore.” He watches Boomer run through the overgrown grass of the field by his house, and for a moment he can pretend that this is _before_ even though he knows it’s not good for him to keep dwelling on the past like this. 

His heart isn’t in it anymore, because when he thinks back to the little episode back in the Spread Eagle, Garrett doesn’t need to wonder what would’ve happened if he had had a gun in his hand at that moment. 

He _knows_ what he would’ve done.

He knows _exactly_ what kind of damage he could’ve caused, knows what he’s capable of when he has a weapon in his hand.

His heart isn’t in it anymore, but he doesn’t know what to do with himself if he isn’t a Deputy any longer.

“Then what is your heart in?” his therapist asks.

“I don’t know,” Garrett answers honestly. Because it’s true. All he’s ever wanted was to help people, but now he’s not even sure he can do that, not with how he is now.

If he can’t be a Deputy anymore, then what could he possibly be?

“Then perhaps you should find out.”

\---

Grace, Jerome, and Dutch come the closest to understanding what he went through, why he is the way he is now. Sure, Billy knows the actual context and he’s still as supportive and accepting as ever, but sometimes…

Sometimes it’s nice to be around people who _get it;_ people who understand why he doesn’t like loud noises, why sneaking up on him is a bad idea, why he declines going to Nick and Kim’s barbeques when he knows that Sharky and Hurk are bringing fireworks.

People who understand how easy it is to get lost in memories of blood and fire and unseeing eyes; how easy it is to be back there again, where things are simple and terrifying.

People who offer a quiet and unsaid understanding.

Of course, that isn’t to say that Billy pushes him or doesn’t know when to give him space or stick to his side like glue.

But Garrett also can’t rely on Billy like an emotional crutch all the time; it wouldn’t be fair to either of them that way.

\---

“How about that guy?” Billy asks as they set about making drinks for the large group of college kids. This is one of the few nights that Garrett can stand to be around other people. It’s not his first choice, but it’s better than being left alone with the nightmares and memories that have stained his hands with blood.

“Not really digging the biker look,” Garrett quips with an easy grin. This is a game they’ve gotten used to; Billy tries pointing out different guys that might interest Garrett and take his mind off of John. “Too much leather.”

They both know that Garrett will never say yes to any of them. His heart is set on John who might not even remember him and won’t settle for anyone else.

“What about him?” Billy nods towards the table on the other side of the bar where Pratt sits with Hudson and her girlfriend.

“Pratt?” Garrett asks in disbelief. “For one thing, we both know he’s not my type. And two, we’re just friends. Kind of. He mostly just makes sarcastic comments and teases everyone.”

There’s a knowing smile on Billy’s face. “Sounds like he’s pulling pigtails.”

There’s a knot in Garrett’s throat at the phrase. Something Adelaide had said in one of the earliest repeats about how Garrett was pulling John’s pigtails by destroying the ‘YES’ sign. His eyes sting with tears that threaten to spill out and the smile drops from Billy’s face immediately, replaced with a look of regret and apology, but Garrett just waves it off.

“It’s fine,” Garrett tells him. “Don’t worry about it.”

It’s been about a month since he woke up in the hospital and it still… it still doesn’t feel quite real.

(He’s not used to being on his own like this anymore, and it shows when he isn’t able to mask his reactions in time.)

Garrett reaches for the lobe of his left ear, only to find it bare; of _course_ he wouldn’t still have the earring, and that hurts more than the memory brought up by the turn of phrase. It leaves him stunned and at a loss.

A whole _month_ and he hasn’t even noticed until now that the earring is gone.

He’d gotten too used to it being there.

“I, uh—I think I’m gonna head home,” Garrett says after they finish making the drinks.

Billy just gives him a reassuring smile, even though he pretends not to notice Garrett taking a half empty bottle of whiskey with him.

Billy sends him a text after the door shuts behind him.
    
    
    Don’t drink and drive, old sport

\---

Garrett wakes with his head pounding and Boomer curled into his side.

The light streaming in through the open windows make him wince as he sits up and tries to remember what happened, but then his phone slides from his chest and clatters onto the wooden floor. Apparently he passed out on the kitchen floor.

Trying to turn it on does nothing; he must’ve run the battery down last night and Garrett already feels dread and exasperation at what drunk him could’ve possibly done.

He gets up from the kitchen floor, lets Boomer outside, and heads up to his room to charge his phone.

As soon as it gets more than 5% Garrett turns it on to find a text from Jess asking him if he wants to go hiking with her and Grace this weekend, another text from Billy, and one from Mary May.

But he also finds that drunk Garrett sent a text to a number he knows by heart, can feel his lungs stutter when he reads it.
    
    
    i want you here with me. come home

But there’s no response.

And that… that pretty much confirms it, right? Or at the very least it’s not John’s number in this life.

Something sour settles behind his ribs and he wants to delete it.

But he doesn’t.

Just exits out of it, leaves it there on his phone and shoves his head beneath the pillows as he internally berates himself for thinking that text was a good idea, even if he _was_ drunk when he sent it.

_Garrett Rook, you are truly a dumbass._

\---

Garrett turns in his gun and badge the next day, though Whitehorse doesn’t seem surprised.

The Sheriff tells him that he saw this coming, and wishes him luck with whatever he decides to do from now on.

“Why don’t you work here with Billy?” Mary May asks when she finally comes home for break. “I mean, you’re pretty much in here every other night already.”

Garrett shrugs. “Don’t exactly have the disposition to be one.”

“It’s not like you’d have to do it forever,” she rolls her eyes at him. “Just, y’know, until you find something that you _want_ to do. And it’s not like you have to worry too much about money since you’re still renting out those acres to that Wilson guy.”

“Maybe,” Garrett concedes and pretends not to notice that Mary May is smiling as if he agreed.

Though to be honest, he might as well have.

\---

The burned up tattoo shop finally gets bought up, Adelaide removing the ‘For Sale’ sign nearly a week after Garrett quit being a Deputy and started working at the Spread Eagle with Billy.

He wonders who bought it and what it’ll be now.

(A ridiculous part of him hopes… but no, he can’t keep setting himself up for heartache like this.)

Garrett starts giving music lessons at the Spread Eagle again, like he did when he was younger. It’s the most at peace he's felt in a while. Not completely, but he’d… Garrett had forgotten how important music was to him.

He marks the passage of time with the progress of the reconstruction of the burnt storefront. Whoever bought the place seems to be putting a lot of money into it, but then it just sits empty when it’s finally fixed about a month later.

“Normally the real estate market out here is pretty stagnant, but a couple of fellas bought that storefront and that house over by Freemont. Brothers, I think,” Adelaide tells him one day while he’s in charge of the bar while Billy is busy doing the books upstairs and Garrett feels his heart stutter, a flicker of hope flaring to life in his chest.

“Brothers?”

“Mhm. Haven’t met them in person.”

“Any idea where they’re from?” _Don’t get your hopes up,_ he has to remind himself.

“I didn’t ask, but I think they might be from Alabama. Definitely southern, at the very least.”

 _Could be anyone,_ Garrett tells himself. _It’s unlikely that it’s John._

\---

It’s been a little more than two months since he woke in the hospital and the renovated storefront still sits empty and unused.

Garrett still works at the Spread Eagle with Billy, though now he’s mostly giving music lessons than working behind the counter, and he still thinks of John every day.

He finally clears out the overgrown field, replaces the weeds with flowers, and he wonders where Rachel Jessop is; he’d asked about her after he broke down and told Billy about the time loops, but all anyone knows is that she left home as soon as she turned eighteen and no one’s heard from her since, not even when her parents died.

(Garrett has a vague idea of what her parents were like and doesn’t feel bad for them in the slightest. He just hopes that she got the help she needed. A huge part of him hopes they all did; he's still angry about what they did, in his old life and probably always will be angry about it, but things are different here.)

Garrett still has dreams of smoke and rot, (dreams of waking up to John smiling almost sweetly at him) and wakes with shaking hands in the middle of the night. He sleeps worse now than ever before, but he manages. He makes due.

(He still feels hollow.)

\---

He wakes somewhere that is familiar yet not, odd shimmering colors that remind him of the northern lights, and his chest is hollowed out, a faint ember burning away within him as smoke billows out from his exposed chest cavity.

And before him stands Billy, but it’s not him; it’s the Billy from that odd dream of that hospital in Georgia, it’s Billy from six years ago.

“We’re sure you have questions,” Not Billy says and Garrett snorts.

“Damn right I have questions. First off, what the hell? Second, what the hell?” Garrett glares at him. “And for the record, you looking like my brother is weird.”

Not Billy tilts his head, but he’s still smiling and there’s something just so off-putting and weird about it. “You’ll have to be more specific.”

Garrett can feel the fire flare up, the smoke growing stronger, and he can feel the flames begin to press against his skin. “Why put me and John through all of this? What was the point of it?”

 _Why were we separated?_ But he doesn’t ask that, the words refusing to form.

(The fire burns brighter and brighter _— fire, hellfire —_ and all he can smell is brimstone and ozone, the air vibrates and hums unpleasantly around them.)

“Things went wrong, but there was only so much _we_ could do to fix it. As for why you and him specifically, we felt it… the best course of action, though you might find our methods unsavory. He was one of the very few who could convince his brother and you were the only one who could get him there.” There’s a tinge of regret on Not Billy’s face, but it looks wrong, like a caricature; it looks as if someone explained what emotions are and how they work to someone who’s never seen it and tried to imitate it to the best of their knowledge. “Things are as they should be, even if all is not forgotten.”

“Who _are_ you? _What_ are you? Why do you keep referring to yourself as _‘we’?”_ Garrett's head is pounding when he tries looking Not Billy directly in the eye.

(It feels as if he's no longer stuck inside the time loops, but the time loops are trapped within his head.)

(Rinse and repeat.)

(Bruises upon bruises upon bruises _upon bruises upon—)_

“We are us just as you are you.” Not Billy reaches out and Garrett flinches away, but Not Billy continues to smile as he opens up his closed palm to reveal John’s earring. “We are sorry for the hurt we’ve caused. Our ignorance seems to have struck again, and it's torn you open 'til the very end.”

“I don't understand,” Garrett says, barely able to hear himself over the loud, sudden ringing in his ears. He can see Not Billy's mouth moving, but there are no words, just buzzing and static that make Garrett’s _bones_ itch which is worrisome for many reasons. The earring keeps drawing his attention and he wants it; he wants it if John can’t be with him in this life.

He goes to take it, but then the world around them twists and bends and Garrett wakes up on the floor tangled in the sheets with Boomer licking his cheek.

A throb of agony lances through him when he doesn’t find the earring.

_(everything is as it should be)_

\---

When it hits the third month mark, the empty storefront is alive with a flurry of constant motion; apparently the new owner has finally decided on what to do with the place.

From what Garrett can tell it’s going to be another tattoo shop.

But he never sees the owner of the place, even after it’s no longer empty but still not opened for business.

Not until three days later.

\---

Garrett’s closing up the Spread Eagle, long after last call and the place is empty; Billy had a date and Garrett let Casey go home early.

It’s been a slow night, though apparently half the customers they did get decided to spill their drinks everywhere, so it’s not until well after midnight that Garrett’s finally done. He wonders if they should put up a sign to discourage the customers from being so messy, though he has no idea what could do it.

After stacking the last chair, Garrett drifts over to the piano, playing a few keys at random until he finally settles on a song he knows by heart. Even allows himself to sing along, since he doesn’t have to worry about having a crowd’s attention.

Someone is clapping when the last notes trail off and Garrett only just now realizes he’s not alone. It’s probably just Billy or Casey or—

“Didn’t know you knew how to play piano,” a familiar voice – one he’s been missing _desperately_ – says and when Garrett turns to look… well, there he is. 

There stands John Seed, watching him with too blue eyes and an almost wild grin.

And Garrett can’t move, too stunned by his sudden arrival.

Or maybe Garrett’s heartache and the intensity of how much he’s missed the other man has finally made him crack. Either real or a hallucination, John steps closer and closer until they’re face to face and god, Garrett hopes this is real.

“Speechless?” John asks and well, there’s really only one way to find out.

Garrett pinches John’s arm and he yelps.

Shit, he’s real. He’s really here.

He's here and he _remembers._

“Good lord, what are you, twelve?” John’s eyes narrow at him. “Seriously, who—”

“Can you stop talking for two seconds so I can kiss you?” Garrett asks breathlessly and doesn’t wait for an answer before pulling him into a kiss. Relief washes through him when John doesn’t hesitate to kiss him back, when he hears the soft, pleased groan, when John crowds him against one of the tables.

Garrett breaks the kiss when it starts to border on progressing into something further, because there is no way they’re having sex in the bar. Pressing his face into the crook of John’s neck, Garrett squeezes his eyes shut tight so he doesn’t start crying.

There’s so much that he wants to ask, but he doesn’t know where to start, too focused on John being _here,_ too distracted by how much neither of them apparently want to let go of each other.

But they can’t stay here all night.

So, Garrett takes a step back. Or he tries to; John’s fingers dig into his hips when Garrett tries to move away, a gleam of an almost desperate panic flashing through blue eyes – all of the bravado from earlier gone – making Garrett halt his movements.

“Let’s go home?” Garrett softly asks, one hand coming up to cup the back of John’s neck.

The desperation smooths out, softens into something less jagged, and Garrett can feel the content shiver that runs through John when Garrett’s fingers start combing through his hair.

“Yes,” John answers just as softly and follows where Garrett leads him.

Out of the bar and into the night, through the winding roads and dense trees, all the way back to an old family farmhouse that’s easy to miss if you don’t know where to look, where the overgrown field is filled with flowers instead of weeds and brambles.

There will be a conversation in the morning while they’re still tangled up in each other, questions and answers, promises made, an earring given freely.

But that’s later.

And right now, they drive home; pinkies linked the entire ride there, no longer caught in the middle of anything.

Everything is as it should be.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> i really wanted to fit in a "country roads, take me home" joke right at the end there but it just wasn't happening
> 
> it was difficult to get the ball rolling on this chapter like y'all would not believe how close i came to just saying "fuck it" and just not doing it. like, i was seriously considering just leaving a list of what was supposed to happen and maybe write garrett and john reuniting lmao. fun fact: their reunion was originally going to be a lot more dramatic, because hello, this is john, the man _lives_ for dramatic shit. but he's also learned to tone it down a bit for garrett in this AU so...
> 
> if y'all have any questions about this fic or if ya just wanna talk about fc5 in general you can find me [here](http://edmunderson.tumblr.com/) (i'm open to suggestions as well)


	22. bonus chapter: i want it that way

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> alright, here's the bonus chapter/epilogue, so now this fic is actually done for realsies (and yes the chapter is definitely named after/for that one backstreet boys song, cuz at this point it's p much _their_ song lmao)
> 
> (speaking of songs that fit them, the [lyrics](https://www.azlyrics.com/lyrics/fun/allalright.html) to this [song](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mmKt0WaAPDQ) fits these two really well)
> 
> i finally beat the game and lemme tell ya, i was not happy fighting john, tho it was kind of a short fight cuz he just crashed his plane into mine as soon as i caught up with him.

There is nothing more terrifying than seeing Garrett literally blink out of existence.

One moment he’s there in John’s arms, the next he’s gone as if he hadn’t been there at all.

And then the world changes around John and he’s no longer in the hospital room with his brother and his niece, but instead he’s in the living room of the apartment he had lived in in Atlanta.

He stands there for a long time, just trying to process what just happened, looking out the large floor to ceiling window, watching the sun rise higher and higher over Atlanta’s skyline.

Without even really thinking about it, John pulls out his phone, calls Garrett to find out where he is, but instead of hearing Garrett’s voice on the other end John hears his spare phone ringing down the hall; of course Garrett wouldn’t have John’s spare phone, that’d be too easy, too damn _convenient._

Something within John snaps – _breaks_ – when this new reality finally settles in and he realizes that Garrett is gone.

The havoc he causes in his apartment isn’t as bad as it could’ve been, just one expensive and fragile piece of art thrown against the wall. A shard of the broken ceramic cuts his hand when he goes to clean up the mess and he doesn’t stop to take care of it until all the broken pieces have been cleared away.

That’s how John spends his first day in this new reality, just sitting on the floor, leaning against the couch while holding a towel against the palm of his hand and watching the day go by outside.

He keeps his phone close in case Garrett calls.

(He doesn’t.)

\---

John spends nearly three days in complete isolation; he doesn’t go anywhere, doesn’t answer his phone.

Most of his time is spent looking out the window or spacing out in the shower or lying in bed staring at the ceiling.

It’s like he’s just shut off; all the lights are on but no one’s home.

He’s got a pretty good idea of where Garrett is, but thoughts fill his head and he can’t bring himself to just buy a damn plane ticket and go. Because what if Garrett doesn’t remember him this time?

Or what if Garrett’s decided he’s happier this way, decided that he’s better off without him?

Because he hasn’t called, hasn’t so much as sent one of his poorly written texts.

So John is left with an odd mix of bitterness and anxiety gnawing away at him for nearly three days. And then Rachel shows up and forces him out of this funk he’s fallen into.

“John?” He hears Rachel’s voice call out, echoing in his too large apartment that looks nice and expensive and he couldn’t give two shits about it. John just grunts vaguely in answer, face shoved into a pillow. “John, what are you doing? We’ve been trying to get ahold of you for days and your lack of an answer has been driving Jacob up the wall.”

The mattress dips as she sits on the edge of the bed and tries to pull back the blanket that keeps him from view, but he wants to be alone.

He wants to wallow in his misery because it’s either that or fall back into old habits that are much worse than this and at least ten times as self-destructive.

He wants to mourn what he had with Garrett and lost, all because time was a fickle thing.

But Rachel is apparently having none of it since she keeps tugging at the blanket.

“Come on, John. You can’t hide in there forever.” Rachel does manage to rip the blanket away, but John keeps his face pressed into the pillow and he can practically hear her rolling her eyes in exasperation.

“Go away, Rachel,” John finally says, though it’s muffled and sounds petulant.

She doesn’t; instead she lies down next to him, hands folded over her stomach, and her voice turns soft.

“What’s wrong?”

There’s a sudden sense of déjà vu, but instead of having this conversation by a field of Bliss they’re having it miles away from Hope County.

The truth sits precariously on the tip of his tongue, ready to spill out.

“There’s nothing wrong, Rachel,” John lies, and he doesn’t need to look at her to know that she knows he’s lying.

“I understand if you feel you can’t talk about it with me, but you shouldn’t bottle it up. Perhaps you should speak of it with Joseph?” Rachel suggests, not even a hint of fear of their brother in her voice. It’s an odd parallel to the conversation they had in another life, despite it being almost word for word.

They lay there in silence for a little while longer, before Rachel gets up and drags him with her; apparently there’s family dinner tonight and he can’t get out of it.

\---

Rachel makes a beeline for the kitchen when they get to a house that John does not recognize at all.

All he knows is that they’re somewhere in Rome, Georgia.

Though when he wanders over to the pictures that line the hallway he figures out where they are pretty quickly.

Photos – dozens of them – showing a life John doesn’t remember at all; there’s one of Jacob holding a little girl John doesn’t know, another of his own graduation from law school with Joseph, Jacob, and a teenage girl crowded around him, a more recent picture of all of them and Rachel at barbeque.

It makes John feel like a stranger, because he sees himself smiling in these photographs, but has no memory of these events that are different to the ones he actually lived through.

And it’s also a stark reminder that Garrett isn’t a part of this life.

Pushing away that spiraling line of thinking, John finally follows after Rachel into the kitchen where Joseph stands at the stove and Rachel sits on the counter, stealing bites of chopped bell pepper and it’s such a surreal moment that John just stares for a few moments.

Because in the life he came from, as dedicated to Eden’s Gate and Joseph as Rachel was, she never looked as comfortable or relaxed around Joseph as she does now.

Then Joseph turns his head to look at him and smiles and it’s… it’s not one of those smiles that made his brother look otherworldly in an ominous way. It reminds John of Joseph before they were all split up by CPS and it kind of wants to make John cry because for the first time in a _very_ long time, John is looking at Joseph and he doesn’t feel fear worming into his gut.

“Good to see you didn’t end up in a ditch like Jacob thought you did,” Joseph jokes and it’s odd. This whole situation is odd; odd because he and Rachel aren’t trying to impress Joseph while being terrified of him. Odd because Joseph doesn’t look like he’s about ready to jump headfirst into a sermon about the Collapse and God’s plan, because Rachel isn’t Faith anymore and she doesn’t have the scent of Bliss rolling off of her in waves, because John is still clearly a basket-case but he doesn’t feel the need to lash out at others like he used to.

(Well, he does, but it isn’t the same. Not for the same reasons. He’s got it under control for the most part, even when his emotions become too much to contain and spill out.)

It’s odd because John can see the stark contrast – the _before_ and _after_ – between how much better things are now than the way they had been, and he can see how being Heralds of Eden’s Gate wasn’t making them better in the slightest; they were tearing themselves apart at the seams repeatedly, over and over again, because they _thought_ doing so would make them better and save others.

But it wasn’t. It didn’t.

And John can see that now; can see that violently exposing and carving his sins into himself and carving sins into others’ wasn’t healing.

He almost can’t believe how _blind_ he’d been, but it was a willful type of ignorance and it’s a sudden, startling realization; John knew all along that doing what he’d done was not only hurting others, but it was hurting others to make his own pain and problems hurt less. But it was never enough. It never made him feel worse, but it never made him feel _better_ either, despite what he told himself otherwise.

John knows that he’s not the same as he had been, but he’s not completely changed either; he still doesn’t feel much or any guilt about the people he’s hurt, but if it hadn’t been for Garrett’s influence (and the time loops, as much as he hates to admit it) John doesn’t think he’d ever have been able to admit to himself what the problem was, or that there was ever a problem to begin with.

Which just makes the bone deep _ache_ even more noticeable.

“John?” Joseph asks and John barely manages to not flinch, to not bow his head in deference, and he realizes that the conversation had continued on without him while he was having his little epiphany.

“Sorry, spaced out for minute there,” John says and it isn’t a lie but it isn’t exactly the truth either.

“Are you sure? You look a little pale.”

“I’m fine,” John lies and they seem to believe him, though Joseph casts a worried glance his way every now and then. Until Jacob and Faith – the real Faith – finally show up.

\---

After that there are odd, foggy fragments of memory that filter in here and there as time goes on.

It’s helpful because at least now he isn’t completely clueless about what’s going on around him, about what his family is like now. But it’s also unsettling and adds a weird voyeuristic sense to things, because it’s like watching the life of a stranger and John’s just an out of place imposter.

It’s like when someone wears clothes that are a size too small; they’ll still fit, but they fit wrong and it’s so damn _obvious how have they not noticed he’s not the same John._

But it’s not all bad. Rachel’s still his best friend, although in this life they met through rehab after she ran away from home. Jacob still has a lot of issues of his own _(pot, kettle,_ he can practically hear Garrett say even though he’s not here, even though they’ve never met in this life) but he seems to be a lot happier than John remembers him being. 

The biggest change is Joseph and Faith.

Faith looks nothing like her dad, except for the blue eyes that all Seeds seem to have, and she’s gotten a biting sense of humor from Jacob, because apparently he helped Joseph raise her for the most part, but she laughs like John. According to Joseph, she’s got her mom’s air of calm and peace, her mom’s power of reassurance.

And Joseph… Joseph is _so different._

There aren’t any traces of the Father left. None that John can see anyway. Joseph is still empathetic, still calm and quiet and willing to listen, but there’s… there’s no heavy, oppressive _weight_ of something old – something ancient – perched on his brother’s shoulders.

Everything has changed so much that when John looks back on the life he came from it’s like looking through one of those funhouse mirrors and a part of him can’t help but _want_ to go back to that, because at least he and Garrett had each other and understood without having to say a word.

Now John can’t even have that small comfort, of having someone who could understand with just one look; can’t even go looking for Garrett because either he doesn’t remember or he’s happier without John.

Because he would’ve called or sent one of those annoying texts by now, but he hasn’t.

John’s changed enough to admit that’s he’s feeling a little bitter.

Okay, a _lot_ bitter.

And he should deal with it – in a healthy way or something – but he doesn’t.

He lets it fester because there’s nothing left in his chest but that sour emotion.

\---

John misses Garrett.

He misses that lopsided grin and the dimples, he misses that terrible sense of humor, he misses the cold fingers that would sneak up under his shirt, he misses the banter between them, he misses the breathy sound of his name spilling out of Garrett’s mouth.

He misses him. Body and soul.

\---

A month after this new life began John receives a text message one night as he lay wide awake, staring at the ceiling.

His phone buzzes noisily by his head and when he thumbs away the lock screen John feels his heart lurch.
    
    
    i want you here with me. come home

It’s a number he doesn’t know but his mind immediately goes to _Garrett_ even though it could be anyone. But then his brain is conjuring up images of a farmhouse that’s nearly impossible to see from the road if one doesn’t know it’s there, of who is waiting for him there. His thumb hovers over the screen, ready to tap out a reply, but that sour feeling twists up behind his ribs again.

It could be anyone; wishful thinking doesn’t automatically make it the man that’s been on his mind constantly for a month now.

John waits to see if there will be another message, clarifying who it is.

When there is none, John puts his phone down and shoves his face into his pillow.

The feelings in his chest fester even further.

\---

Out of all of his family to call him out on his sulking, John didn’t expect it to be Joseph, though when he really thinks about it, he honestly shouldn’t have been all that surprised.

“I was going to let you talk to one of us when you were ready, but it’s been a month and you’ve gotten moodier in the last couple of days. What’s wrong?” Joseph asks after letting himself into John’s apartment.

“Did you just drive two hours to ask me something when you could’ve done it over the phone?”

“If I called you could’ve just hung up on me; if I’m here in person you can’t ignore it,” Joseph tells him and then his face softens. “Something’s clearly bugging you and we’re all worried.”

So, with a weary sigh, John tells him.

\---

Joseph doesn’t even seem fazed by what John tells him.

“You do remember that you and this Garrett literally showed up in my darkest hour about eighteen years ago, right?” Joseph asks John wryly.

And John blinks at that before a sense of embarrassment falls over him. Right, of course. He’d been so wrapped up in his own head that he kind of forgot about that.

“So my thinking, is that if _I_ remember that, and _you_ remember what lead you to that moment, then who’s to say Garrett doesn’t also remember? You should go to him.”

John thinks back to the text he had gotten and hope swells behind his ribs because Joseph is right. He’s been letting his fear get in the way.

There’s nothing stopping him from going to find Garrett.

Except for his family. Because they’re all here in Georgia.

“But what about you and the rest of the family?” Because as much as he’s missed Garrett John also doesn’t want to give up his family. Not only that, there’s still quite a few loose ends here he has to deal with.

But Joseph only smiles and rests a hand on his shoulder. “We’d go too. Rachel has been meaning to go back and do something with her family’s conservatory and Faith will be going off to college pretty soon as well. And Jacob could probably do with a change of scenery.”

It seems easy, far too easy, but then John’s thinking of that conversation he and Garrett had had, about what he’d do differently in another life and John…

John really wants that; living with Garrett in that old farmhouse that’s hard to find, doing what he wants with his life without having to worry about the Duncans, without time itself intervening over and over again.

He’s never been able to keep hold of anyone or anything before in his life and he’s tired of it.

He wants to be able to keep _Garrett_ and if that means having to woo him all over again if it turns out he doesn’t remember then so be it, but John will be damned if he lets Garrett slip through his fingers without even trying.

\---

John gets to work as soon as possible.

He buys up a storefront in Falls End that had been torched pretty badly, but he’s got money to spare to fix it up, though that will have to wait for a while. John’s lightened his caseload as much as possible, short of just dropping every case. Jacob heads out for Hope County immediately once John has bought up a house for all of them.

“It needs some work so I might as well go fix it up while you guys take of business here. Besides, Miller’s been buggin’ me to go fishing with him,” Jacob says as he loads the last of his things into his truck.

\---

Whenever he looks in the mirror he’s surprised by the lack of _‘Sloth’_ carved into his skin. 

It had been with John for so long he briefly entertains the idea of carving it into place again, but just as quickly dismisses the idea; he doesn’t need it. He never did.

And the earring in his left ear isn’t the same one he used to have; there’s no sunburst cross on it, just a plain metal stud.

He wonders if Garrett still has it, the earring he stole off of John in his bunker.

\---

Time passes quickly in the right direction now that John has a goal. 

There’s only three cases left and two of them are wrapping up nicely. The last one should be finished in another two weeks and John’s feeling good about everything despite having weird dreams he can’t quite remember.

Although, after a particularly strange one, he finds the earring Garrett had taken on the kitchen counter next to the coffee machine.

John does a quick but thorough search of his apartment, but finds nothing out of the ordinary.

He doesn’t know if it’s a good omen or not, but he keeps hold of the earring anyway.

\---

It’s been three months and it’s finally happening.

He drives through the roads of Hope County in the dark; he could head to his family’s new home, but John can’t wait. Doesn’t care if it’s late.

When he finally reaches Falls End, John leaves his car parked behind his shop, drops his bag just inside the door and locks it; he’s got a basic plan in mind. Go to the Spread Eagle and see what he can find out.

It’s not much, but every fiber in his being is vibrating restlessly now that he’s here.

The place seems to be empty but the lights are still on and he can hear a piano playing so John just lets himself in and stops dead in his tracks.

And there’s Garrett playing the piano and singing and any kind of plans he had for their first meeting in this life goes completely out the window. It kind of feels like he’s walking in a dream because it seems too good to be true, to finally be in the same room as Garrett after three months apart.

“Didn’t know you knew how to play piano,” John finds himself saying once the song is over and he can feel the wild, excited grin stretch across his face.

Green eyes lock onto him and all his sharp edges feel softened, because there’s very clearly recognition in that gaze and the kiss that comes after the pinch soothes the wild energy that had been brewing behind his ribs.

John follows Garrett out of the bar; he’s already followed him through Hell, so why would this ever change?

\---

The house is just as he remembered it but different; there’s still flowers out in the field but they’re not the same one’s Rachel had planted what seems like decades ago and Boomer still runs up to him like the dog knows him.

The bed is the same just like every breath and sigh Garrett makes when John finally slides into him, cold fingers clutching at his back and shoulders, and there’s no need to rush because it’s like two pieces of a puzzle falling into place.

They fall asleep curled around one another, legs entangled and arms wrapped tightly. In the morning they’ll talk, but for now this is fine.

\---

His dreams are weird that night, but they’re not nightmares.

Just odd shimmering lights beneath salt water waves, seaweed and algae in the water around him. He looks up towards the surface and sees the sunlight filtering down to him and there’s someone else there with him, speaking to him, but their words are all wrong; it sounds like they’re speaking upside down but that doesn’t make sense and it hurts to look them directly in the eye so he averts his gaze, but their shape is odd, their outline wavering and changing.

The dream ends when they lift him out of the depths and towards the bright surface.

\---

John wakes with the sunrise and just lays there with Garrett, slowly running a hand up and down Garrett’s back then over his ribs and coming to a stop on his chest.

There’s no _‘Wrath’_ there anymore, just like there isn’t _‘Sloth’_ and it feels wrong and right.

“You can always tattoo something else there,” Garrett says, voice soft yet rough with sleep.

The corner of John’s mouth quirks into a smile as he looks at this man who has stolen him – body, soul, and heart – completely, ever since the first time they saw each other in that church that never existed.

“I can do one better than that.” Then he’s leaning over the side of the bed and he fishes around in the pocket of his jeans until he finds what he’s looking for. Garrett raises an eyebrow in question, but John just tilts Garrett’s head enough so that he can put the well-worn sunburst cross earring through the still open piercing-hole. “Still wouldn’t mind a tattoo though.”

There’s mischief flashing in his green eyes and John can’t help but press him back into the mattress, settling himself between Garrett’s thighs and pressing his lips to every inch of Garrett’s face until he’s laughing and squirming beneath John.

And then John presses his lips to the shell of Garrett’s ear and whispers the words Garrett had first said to him when they had been hiking up a mountain in the Whitetails.

“I love you.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> there a few scenes/chapters that i wish had turned out a little differently or that i had originally envisioned being different (like this final john chapter is so completely different from what i had originally planned and went through a lot of rewrites and it's likely to go through another one tbh) or stuff i wanted to include but couldn't, but i like this fic as it is overall.
> 
> anyway, they got the soft, happy ending they deserve after all the shit i put them through lmao
> 
> i have no words to accurately express how happy it's made me that y'all have enjoyed this fic. you guys have been great. y'all can find me [here](http://edmunderson.tumblr.com/) if u wanna talk about fc5 (or anything in general really lmao) or if you got questions about this fic i'm always happy to answer
> 
> so thank you and good night.


	23. bonus chapter: seeing double vision

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> it's not really necessary to read this if you prefer where the story actually ended, this is just something that's been kicking around in my head for a while. it's honestly just bonus material for fun.
> 
> i was originally gonna post this lil extra for Halloween. 
> 
> so happy late Halloween! Joseph and Billy get (briefly) possessed!

He watches with fondness as his family melds seamlessly into the Falls End community; it had been one of Joseph’s biggest worries with moving here, but that worry had washed away when the Ryes had invited all of them to the monthly barbecue they hosted

It’s odd being here with people he apparently hurt in another life he doesn’t remember.

Needless to say, Joseph prefers this life to the one John and Garrett came from; there’s a pang of hurt in his heart knowing that he was capable of such treachery, though it’s all thanks to those two that Joseph never went down that path.

Taking a sip of the beer that Mr. Rye had cheerfully pushed into his hand when they arrived, Joseph leans back against the picnic table, content to just watch the party go on around him.

The picnic table sways ever so slightly as someone sits down next to him; a blond man who looks to be roughly around John’s age, a beer of his own in hand, with a slightly drunk smile.

“I’m Billy Fairgrave,” he introduces himself, holding the hand not occupied with a beer can out for Joseph to shake. “Garrett’s friend.”

“Joseph Seed,” he replies before taking another sip of his own beer.

“Oh, so you’re the guy who killed me.”

Joseph chokes on his beer.

His head whips around to look at Billy, but Billy just grins shamelessly, clearly trying to not laugh. They’re lucky they’re the only ones at the table, otherwise they’d probably be getting strange looks right about now.

“Sorry about that?”

It comes out unsure, which is appropriate because what _is_ the proper reaction to someone you killed – or had killed. Semantics because either way, in another life this man had _died_ because of him – in an alternate reality and are now meeting them for the first time?

No, really, he’d very much like to know.

Billy chuckles, however, seemingly unbothered by the whole situation.

“Don’t worry about it. I’ve never been one to hold grudges. Besides, it’s not like you’ve done it here.” His head tilts in thought. “Though if you tried now, I’d probably be pissed. At least a little.”

An amused huff escapes him, but before Joseph can say anything, he’s hit by a sudden sense of vertigo.

The whole world tilts and his skin feels uncomfortably tight, like he’s not the only one in it, and there’s an incredibly strange sensation, as if his whole body were just a mass of… _eyes._

(It doesn’t make any sense but that’s the only way he can think to describe it.)

Billy seems to be affected by it too when Joseph finally notices.

He notices, because it physically _hurts_ to look directly at Billy, the outline of his being jumping and twitching even though he’s sitting still.

“You can’t stall forever,” Joseph finds himself saying, but it’s not him.

“Not forever, just long enough,” Billy’s voice replies, although it sounds off; backwards and upside down.

Joseph glances at of the corner of his eye, catching sight of John and Garrett and Rachel and Jacob in the crowd and feels his heart stop for a moment; Jacob’s eyes are two black voids and Rachel is just a bunch of white flowers in a vaguely human shape. Garrett’s skin is scorched and cracked like a log in a fire, and John looks like he’s underwater, movements water slow and his normally slicked back hair floating freely even though they’re on dry land.

And then just as quickly as it happened, it’s over and the noise of the party washes over them again.

There’s a sharp inhale next to him and Joseph’s gaze snaps back to Billy whose hands are shaking.

“You want another beer?” Joseph asks, relief flooding through him; it’s him this time.

“I want three,” Billy says as he downs the rest of his beer.

It’s ridiculous, and he’ll even say as much later when they turn it into a joke, but Joseph and Billy stay as far away as possible from that picnic table for the rest of the barbecue.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> joseph and billy have a joke about the Evil Picnic Table of Uncomfortable and Slightly Traumatizing Realizations™ and they never fuckin explain it

**Works inspired by this one:**

  * [the last days of hope county](https://archiveofourown.org/works/15706326) by [vmbr](https://archiveofourown.org/users/vmbr/pseuds/vmbr)
  * [Rinse & Repeat](https://archiveofourown.org/works/17225231) by [FrostyLee](https://archiveofourown.org/users/FrostyLee/pseuds/FrostyLee)




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